The Object of My Desire: Reign of Blood
by BloodGoyle
Summary: NOTE:THIS IS A SEQUEL Skipping school may have saved Seth's life, but if he knew what was in store for him when the town of Silent Hill seeps from it's binds, he may have chosen death...
1. Spread of Death

Reign of Blood

Chapter One

Spread of Death

"What do you mean 'he's not here'? _Find him_!! Do whatever you have to!!...Kill anything that gets in your way... We shall find him as we pave the road to paradise..." A woman with long black hair and magnificent wings folded up behind her screamed at a group of monsters in front of her, bowing their heads. She stood at the alter of a huge chapel, directly behind her was a giant cross with the decaying skeletal remains of an angel, crucified. The remains of the dead angel's wings were pinned against the arms of the cross, her bony left arm pinned to her left wing. She was missing a right arm, and her right leg was in two pieces.

The woman limped towards the monsters, using her great wings as a sort of crutch to hold up her weight. Her right arm socket was bleeding down her torso and right leg, which was bent in an awkward way.

"_Velgauder!!_" The woman called. Within seconds her mighty dragon had landed with an earth-shaking thump in front of the chapel, and was howling to her from outside, ready to receive orders. "Lead my army... If he's not in Silent Hill, then find him... Wherever you have to... just... bring... him.. to... me... _Now go_!!" Her monsters dispatched, the valtiels crawling quickly up the walls, her hounds darting out the doors and windows in packs as their claws clicked and scraped against the hard floor, her closers marching towards the front gates, each moaning, howling, and hissing their horrible song...

* * *

The halls were almost empty in the school, the bell had rang and a few late students shuffled along to get to class. Within a minute, the halls were quiet. The only sound was the lecturing of the teachers and the chatter of uncaring students in the back of every classroom echoing softly throughout the corridors. The halls darkened as the sun disappeared, like a cloud of darkness was lowering and engulfing the area, blocking out the light. The lectures and droning teacher's voices dragged on, unaffected at the sudden loss of natural light, as if no one took any notice but a few daydreaming students starring through the doorway into the halls.

The fluorescent lights began to flicker in the halls and every classroom simultaneously, cutting off one by one every monotone voice as the flickering increased rapidly. Sleepers and daydreamers awoke from their naps and looked around confused, matching the look on everyone's faces. The only light sources left dimmed to a glow, just barely bright enough to see faint outlines of objects in the halls and classrooms. Every now and then the lights would flicker on for a split second, like a flash of lighting and the halls would be visible for a blink of an eye.

Racing down the halls was the distinct sound of long nails clinking and sliding rapidly on the hard floor, too many to count and getting louder. The few doors that were closed now opened, the silhouette of a head sticking out and looking around, listening. The sound of numerous claws was joined by growling and snarling and howling as a bleeding black cloud quickly swept through the halls, breaking off into every room and followed only by shrill screams of death. One by one, following the pack, every light shattered and poured splinters down to the blood-covered ground until it was left in complete darkness, only the sounds of flesh being torn from bone and a few last screams could be heard over the ravenous howls and snarls of the beginning of the end. Not finding what they were looking for, the pack flooded out of the front doors and spread out in their search, covering the streets in blood and the skies with black.

"Yo, Seth! Where are you?" A male voice talked through the receiver of a cell phone held by a guy on a skateboard, headphones around his neck blasting heavy metal, the ultimate multi-tasker. He wore black baggy pants with many pockets and a gray hoodie sweatshirt reading "Shorty's Skateboards". His shaggy black hair blew in the wind as he sped down the sidewalk.

"I'm on my skateboard. Where are you?" He said cynically, the sound of the rolling wheels scraping the sidewalk and his loud, ear-splitting music letting people know he was coming from a mile away. He reached in the pocket of his hoodie, and put his music on pause so he could hear his friend.

"So funny. Seriously, I thought we were all going to see that new movie today! I got the gang and we're waiting for you at my house. You in?" The cell phone said.

"...What movie?" Seth asked, trying to concentrate on his friend and not getting hit by a car or running into someone equally as stupid.

"...Hey, guys! What movie we seein'?" His friend held the phone away from his mouth and asked the laughing and yelling voices in the background. "...Nobody knows what it's called, but it's rated R for violence, gore and sex... So you in?" There was a pause and Seth thought about it.

"...As inviting as that sounds, I have a big test in AP, and I need to take it at the same time as that smart girl who sits next to me. Maybe some other-" The screeching of car tires cut him off, a car getting closer and speeding towards him. "_Shit!_" He yelled, jumping off his skateboard and rolled on his side just barely avoiding being hit, his skateboard being propelled behind him. The man in the car rolled down his window.

"Watch where yer going, asshole!!" The man yelled, driving away.

"Fuck you!!" Seth called after him. His phone lay on the ground next to him.

"...eth...? ....ou...k....?" He picked up the phone and held it to his ear, trying to hear his friends voice over the sudden blast of static and the sound cutting off every few seconds.

"Dammit! The bastard broke my phone! I'll talk to you later, Joey!" After pocketing the broken phone, he ran back across the street and retrieved his skateboard, running with it in front of him and dropping it to the ground in front of his feet, hopping on. He looked up to the sky, noticing the sun fading the distance. Near the horizon, the sun was completely concealed by black, casting a heavy shadow down to earth. He continued to roll towards it, slowing down slightly subconsciously. The cloud was getting bigger, closer, yet he continued on, into the mouth of the beast.

As it got darker and harder to see, the sound of people and living breathing things ceased, no sound of cars or chattering people came to Seth's ears, but only the faint rustling of dying leaves falling off the branches of trees, like everything just shriveled up and died without the light from the sun to guide them. The light behind him began to disappear with the horizon.

"What the hell..." He muttered to himself, his wheels now crunching over the wave of leaves falling from the dying trees. He screeched to a halt in front of a large building. The rusted, blood-smeared sign in front of it read "South Ashfield High" and had a few random graffiti's, many reading "SASH," what the students all called their school. Picking up his skateboard, Seth adjusted the headphones around his neck nervously, taking a step towards the front doors.


	2. Scared stiff

Reign of Blood

Chapter Two

Scared Stiff

A bone-chilling shriek stopped him in his tracks. Silence. Even more unsettling than the scream. He forced himself to continue on towards the seemingly abandoned school. The wind howled against the sides of the building, creaking and moaning softly. It's as if the school had aged a few decades without any maintenance in the short time he had skipped his morning classes. He walked up to the front doors, which were already wide open. It was pitch black, all the lights out and no light from outside to shine in and guide him. He only saw the faint outlines of doors and walls.

As he walked hesitantly through the dark tunnel, only the sound of his shoes crushing shattered glass covering the floor could be heard. The floor was unusually slippery, the shards of glass slid every step he took, scraping the hard floor loudly. What the hell had happened here?

After what seemed like an eternity of wandering aimlessly through dark and deserted halls, something in one of the rooms caught Seth's eye. A dim red glow was just barely shining through a cracked door, spilling a streak of red onto the floor a ways in front of him. He picked up the pace, crunching quickly through the glass until he came upon the door, and pushed it open slowly. The splash of red grew wider as the door opened all the way, to reveal a sickening sight. Kids slumped over on desks, half-eaten appendages and lifeless bodies sprawled everywhere, covering the floor. Seth traced the glowing red to an overhead; blood had splattered onto the glass and concealed the light, turning it a faded and pale shade of blood-red only visible in complete darkness. He felt sick.

After tearing his eyes away from the grotesque sight before him, he needed to lean on the hallway wall, his eyes shut tight trying to get the mental image out of his eyes. Confused and sickened, he blindly stumbled away, feeling lightheaded and nauseous.

Then he heard something- the first remotely human sounding noise since he had neared the vicinity of the school. It sounded like a girl's voice whimpering, trying not to cry but her muffled sobs were still hearable, echoing throughout the empty corridors. Seth followed the sound, rubbing his temples with one hand, his other dragging along the wall to keep him balanced on his feet. Every time he came to an open door, he would lean to the side unwillingly, almost falling into the classroom and into another gruesome scene just like the first. His mind swam with the blood of the students plastered all over the walls...

The sound was getting louder, until he stopped in front of the classroom door he was certain the sobs were coming from. Despite the fact his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he still could only make out the silhouettes of objects and splattered blood and crumpled bodies. As he ventured into the room, careful to step over not through the pools of half-eaten students, he could her cries coming from the corner of the room... whoever it was had not seen him yet.

"...Hello...?" As soon as the girl had heard him, she gasped, holding her breath. She was too terrified to make a sound. The closet, a small door in the corner, slowly creaked open. A girl's head peeked through the crack. She opened the door enough so she could fit out, and timidly stood in front of the closet, eyes wide and unwillingly taking in the gruesome reeking of death that filled the classroom. She was very small, tiny in both height and weight, with short black hair and a light blue sweater stained in blood. He could not make out anything else about her, barely able to see.

"..Who... who are you...?" Her voice was barely audible for even the most silent room.

"...Seth..." When she did not respond, her throat becoming tied in knots, the awkwardness forced Seth to ask the one question he did not know if she could even answer. "What.... What happened...?" His voice was barely a shaking whisper. The girl only shook her head, silent tears streaming down her face, her eyes unable to close on the horrifying sight before them. She hesitantly walked towards him, unsure of what else to do. Both speechless, they left the room, the shy girl hiding behind Seth as he went through the door first.

Then he heard it again; the same scream he had heard outside, only this time it was louder as it echoed through the halls. Both he and the girl froze. It had not been she who had screamed. Seth slowly ventured down the halls, following the echoing scream, the girl close behind him. He could hear her soft, pinched breathing, it was fast, as if she had just ran a mile or two. He tried to quiet his own breathing, paranoid of making a sound for reasons he could not put into words. He wished she would breath softer...

Then he heard another breathing. It was not his own, for he held his breath involuntarily when he heard it. It was softer than the girl behind him; and getting closer. She did not notice it, trying to calm herself down, she was shaking uncontrollably. The breathing was rapid, gasping every second like a child crying.

What was a kid doing in a high school?

Seth gradually picked up the pace, the sound seemingly belonging to a harmless individual. The girl behind him stopped, starring at the end of the corridor with wide eyes. She stopped breathing, like a picture frozen in time she did not move. Seth turned around. Her silhouette was framed against the dark hall, making it difficult to read her expression.

"...What is it...?" Seth whispered, a chill sent up his spine. What was she looking at? It wasn't him. It was behind him.

He whirled around to face an empty hallway. Turning back to her, he was about to repeat his question when she suddenly let out a peep, the loudest thing he had heard from her as of yet. She fell backwards onto her butt, scrambling backwards. Her eyes stared at nothing, terrified.

Suddenly, another chill was sent up Seth's spine, then back down. It spread to his arms and legs, he couldn't move. An ear-splitting scream filled his head, the same as before, but right into his ears. He tried to yell, but he couldn't speak. He fell to the ground, landing on his side and twitching violently onto his stomach. The girl backed up further.

His arms were crossed over his chest, nails digging into his shoulders. The chills turned into sheer pain, like someone stabbing him between the shoulders and running the knife down his spine. His own blood poured out of him from an unseen wound, covering the floor around him. He was shaking now, curled up into a tiny ball on the ground.

He opened his eyes to small slits; the girl had stood up at some point and kneeled next to him. Something was in her hand. Her mouth was moving but all Seth could hear was the screaming that rang in his ears.

Seth's body suddenly went limp, his nails unhooked from his skin and every muscle in his body loosened and became still. His fingers twitched a few times, then became motionless. His mouth hung open halfway, his breathing heavy and shaking, his eyes wide and unable to turn to face the girl. The blood that had surrounded him was gone, and so was the pain. The scream quickly faded, like an echo it got softer and softer until it disappeared.

The last thing Seth saw before blacking out was the girl, still leaning next to him, tears streaming down her face. As his vision slowly went black she stood up, leaning on the wall for support as she stumbled down the hall slowly.


	3. Waking the Dragon

Reign of Blood

Chapter Three

Waking the Dragon

When Seth awoke, he was still in the school. The smell of blood was heavy, like a mist it clung to the air. Decaying bodies filled every classroom. It was still dark. He had not woken up from his horrible nightmare yet...

The sun was still down. Was there no daytime here? Or perhaps he had been out cold all night? He did not know the answer to that, nor did he know where the girl he found was... He looked around him, his head pounding. No sign of life anywhere.

But he couldn't get that feeling of dying out of him; the cold death that had wrapped itself around him was still fresh in his mind.

Seth stood up, after getting the feeling back in his legs he dared to wander the halls once more. There was no sound at all, for he breathed as quietly as he could, despite that he wanted to just collapse again and breathe deeply. He was exhausted. ...But what to do now...?

"_Seth?!_" A female voice behind him called, making him jump and his heart skip a beat. He spun around to face a girl he vaguely knew, who was in one of his classes. Emma Something. He didn't really care. She wore a tight blue and gold shirt reading "cougars" in big letters across the front, her short rolled-up pleated skirt also blue and gold. Even her knee-high socks were school spirited, one blue the other gold. No doubt a cheerleader.

She ran up to him and hugged him, as if clutching for dear life, almost knocking him over. Funny, how any normal day in school she would go out of her way to make his and his friend's lives miserable. It was her duty as a cheerleader to pick on those less popular. Yet when all her friend are dead, well, the peer pressure died with them. Funny, how now she clings to him when she's left alone. When she's alone no one can see how stunning she looks, there's no cute boys to flirt with, no-

"Seth!" She repeated, snapping him out of his sudden retraction into his thoughts. He looked at her, she was tall, although not as tall as he, and bulemically skinny. Her fake blonde hair, whose color seemed to change with the passing of the day, was up in pigtails. He had to shove her off of him.

"Emma, what are-?"

"It's Amy." She seemed hurt that he didn't know her name.

"Whatever. How'd you get here? Why aren't you dead?" Seth's question seemed to make her uneasy, for she backed away. He didn't mean for it to come out that way, but whatever. Maybe now he'll have a chance to get rid of her.

"I...I... Don't know... I... just got here.... and it was.... everyone..." She was crying very loudly, weeping into her hands. Seth really wished she would shutup.

A crash granted his wish. Down the hall, towards the cafeteria, a stack of pans clattered noisily to the ground and echoed through the emptiness of the halls. They both immediately fell silent. Amy let out a cry, her eyes wide and tears streaming out of them. Slowly she backed away, her eyes fixed on something at the very far end of the hall. Seth followed her gaze. A loud clanging noise, much louder than the first, was heard. Pots and pans were sent flying from the hall leading to the cafeteria, clattering loudly on the ground, leaving a metallic ringing in their ears.

Seth was losing patience with Amy. She kept crying, although it was silent it could still be heard. Her tiny gasps for air and sniffs were making him paranoid. He quickly leaned into her, covering her mouth with his hand. She jumped, backing up into him a shadow became visible. It stretched along the floor, and it was huge. It's harsh noises and growls were getting louder. The shadow consumed the entire floor ahead of them, the thing was about to walk into the hall that they were in. It would see them.

Thinking quickly, Seth pulled Amy into an open classroom door, shutting the door as slowly and softly as he could. Amy watched him in horror. The door clicked softly closed as he locked it. Whatever was outside had heard them. Amy jumped backwards as the thing let out a terrifying roar. Seth grabbed her arm before she could run to the back of the classroom in an attempt to put more space between her and the thing outside, and pulled her to the ground next to him. They both leaned against the door, under th window, listening in fear as footsteps shook the ground, getting closer and stronger.

Something stopped in front of the door, Seth could tell, because it had its face pressed up against the door to try and see inside. The hinges creaked under the pressure, it's hot breath blowing hard through the cracks between the door and the frame. Seth did not move his hand from around Amy's head, holding her mouth shut. He could feel her warm tears dripping down his hand. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting for death to break down the door, with a final spout of hot air it began to walk away. The door fell back in place to the doorframe, Seth let out a silent sigh. They waited for a few minutes before even moving.

Seth let go of Amy, wiping his hand off on her shoulder. She sat petrified against the door.

"You coming or not?" He said, still aggravated with her for giving away their location and being so noisy. "_Hope that monster comes back and getsya..._" He mumbled, but she didn't hear. She obediently stood up, and like a soldier awaiting orders she did not move. Seth opened the door carefully, treating it as if it were a bomb about to go off in his hands. He poked his head out before opening it all then way, looking both ways. The hall was completely silent, no movement or anything.

He pushed it open and stepped out, Amy following at his heels like a dog. They stepped lightly down the halls, towards the front doors. They had to get out of this place, for every hiding place was a dead-end. They just got lucky. If it happened again, they'd be trapped.

Suddenly he hear a soft noise. Seth couldn't tell what it was. It sounded like... voices... and something else...

"...Do you hear that?" Seth said in a hushed voice, trying to concentrate on the noise. Amy shook her head, looking at Seth weird. Seth continued to hear it; voices, and what sounded like.... music. Then it hit him like a slap in the face. Duh! He still had his cd player with him, headphones around his neck. The song whispered in his ear.

"to me you were my life

to me you were my soul companion

now you are so far away

nothing can take away the time and the memories we had

come back - to the days when we were young

come back - to the days when nothing mattered..."

As Seth listened to his cd, he could have sworn there was something different about it.. The song continued to play, but it sounded a little slower than usual, the notes flat. Despite the fact that there were only males in this group, the sound of a sobbing woman could be heard in the background. Through her hushed cries she was whispering, muttering something harshly that he could not understand. He reached into his pocket and pushed the stop button. The music cut off.

"...What are you doing... What's... wrong?" Amy finally asked, mustering up the courage to speak without the fear of him leaving her alone because she was too noisy. Seth shook his head, telling her it was nothing. He put the headphones back down around his neck, and continued down the hall. Amy followed, and did not speak again until they were close to the front of the school.

Seth stopped in his tracks, Amy running into him and gasping. The sound of a dog barking in the far off distance echoed softly. It was a deep, gruff-sounding bark, accompanied by growls and snarls. It seemed to be fighting with something. Seth and Amy rushed towards the doors in an effort to get out before whatever was fighting came down the hall. The strongest one would win, which was definitely not a good thing for them.

Seth yanked the doors open, which someone had apparently closed, for he had left them open upon entering. They creaked unimaginably loudly, even though Seth only opened them wide enough so a single person could squeeze through. He ran ahead first, Amy close behind him, behind Amy was the rapid clinking of nails on the hard floor. And we have a winner, unfortunately, a very fast winner. Before Amy could get through the crack in the door completely, she started screaming, trying to pull herself out. Something had her leg, and was trying to pull her back in.

With a mighty heave Seth grabbed her arm, yanking her out of the door. She fell to the ground, Seth closing the door as quickly as he could. A long snout reached out from the crack, its jaw wide open and searching for the leg it almost had for dinner. Seth pushed as hard as he could against the creature's weight, until he got he heavy door pinched so tightly on it's nose it yelped and pulled back in.

Seth sighed, leaning on the door, listening to the creature inside barking and whining and scratching on the door to try and get it open. Amy was still on the ground, clutching her leg. Blood was seeping from in between her fingers as she cried.

"...You okay...?" Was the only thing Seth could think of to say to her. He really didn't care whether or not she was okay, as a matter of fact, he hoped that she wasn't. If her leg was hurt then he could easily outrun her, not that he couldn't before. He did have a skateboard. Actually, now he could probably easily out walk her, he thought to himself with a bit of amusement. She continued to cry on the ground.

As Seth began to walk away, not very proud for leaving her but not really caring about this self-centered bitch, she spoke.

"Wait! ...please... don't leave me..." She peeped through sobs and tears. She pushed herself up onto her feet, leaning on her good leg and limping on the other. She could still walk. Damn.

"...Fine. But if you fall behind, I'm not slowing down for you." It was then Seth remembered something someone once told him. To outrun a bear, you don't have to be faster than it, you just have to be faster than the slowest person running from it. Maybe having her around wouldn't be such a bad idea after all...

Amy followed him down the sidewalk leading to the school. As they walked away Seth hoped that there was no one left, in a room he had not gone to. He couldn't stop worrying about his friends, most of all. But they had skipped school, too. Maybe they were still safe...

"...Seth?" Amy interrupted his train of thought.

"What?" He said roughly.

"..Where are we going...?" It was then he noticed that she was limping horribly, every step hurting her more. She struggled just to keep up with him. Seth slowed his pace slightly.

"I don't know. I just want to get out of this place..."


	4. Let You Down

Reign of Blood

Chapter Four

Let You Down

The voices were there then. They were always there, moaning, wailing, screaming, crying... She told her they were coming, she told her to hide. As the door slammed against the wall the closet door closed. Through their voices she could hear the lives just beyond the door ending abruptly, their should being torn from the flesh, gone forever.

She had even tried to held Seth, but was rejected by his body. He could not begin to understand the pain, the suffering, the torture... Some were just not meant to See. He was a walking deadman. It was only a matter of time...

A teenage girl, small-framed for her age, stood on the roof of the hospital. A tall chain-link fence caged her inside. She stood silently, her fingers laced inside the chain links as she looked out over the town. The wind blew her short black hair in front of her face, the dark curtain hiding her from the world outside of her mind.

"...I'm sorry, but I just can't do that..." Her whisper was carried away by the wind. She stayed motionless for a while, listening to something unheard. "...I... don't want to... He didn't... do anything..." She closed her eyes tightly, trying to make the voices go away. "..That wont...." A single tear slid down her cheek. "...he's not like that! That man is dead, you said so yourself... I know... but Seth isn't him!!" She screamed at nothing, her voice echoing across the wind.

* * *

Seth walked down the empty road, pulling his skateboard behind him with a long ribbon. Amy sat on the skateboard with her legs up, holding onto the yellow ribbon. She had taken it out of her hair, her pigtails now one ponytail on the back of her head. Seth pulled her along with no complaint from either of them. He did not know why he chose to do this.

The phone in Seth's pocket rang and vibrated, making him jump. He fumbled with it until it flipped open and he held it to his ear. Immediately he pulled back, static blasting from the receiver. Gradually it softened, until it was quiet enough he could hold it to his ear. He strained his ears to her the voices through the white noise.

"... ...want to be like me? ....why? ..nge.... ryin.... d....!... not supposed to.....hu...n..." Seth could hear the faint voice of a man on the other end of the phone. He couldn't understand what he was saying... Seth stopped himself from talking when a woman's voice joined the mans. She responded to him, but Seth didn't catch a word. Was he listening to someone else's conversation? Maybe they were nearby, still alive... They seemed to be calm, so if they were close it meant that he was close to finding a way out of this nightmare.

The white noise slowly overpowered the voices, until he could no longer hear them at all. It became so loud he forced himself to hang up. He pocketed the phone. It had been staticy when he was talking to Joey a while ago... maybe it wasn't completely broken after all.

"...Seth? Who was that?" Amy asked, talking in a much more timid voice than he was used to hearing from her.

"...I don't know. It was someone's conversation... I couldn't understand them."

"...Why not? Were they speaking another language?" Amy asked, trying not to sound like a brain-dead ditsy cheerleader but failing miserably. At the risk of leaking out one of the many comebacks that had popped into his head at that moment, Seth simply said nothing. Amy must have realized how stupid she sounded, for she didn't speak either.

Seth looked through the corner of his eye at Amy. She was bleeding on his skateboard. With a wince, Seth turned away and continued to pull her along. The wheels were loud in the perfectly silent streets, scratching gently on the sidewalk. Everywhere was empty; there was no usual crowded sidewalks full of rushing pedestrians for Seth to avoid on his skateboard, no cars in the road blaring their horns at each other impatiently... The only cars on the road were a few parked in front of fire hydrants, and even more at a complete stop bent around dead trees, signs, and each other. The engines of some of them were still smoking, hissing and crackling softly.

Seth averted his eyes from the wrecks, not having any intention of looking inside the cars. Amy had obviously looked, for he felt her jerk away, nearly falling off the skateboard, and give out a quiet scream. Seth rolled his eyes, wondering again why the hell he chose to bring her along.

What waited in front of them was sure to make her scream louder, leading god knows what right to them.

"Amy, close your eyes. Don't open them until I say," Seth commanded. She brought her face to her knees, saying nothing and letting him pull her along. Seth tried not to look as well, but couldn't do it. He looked down. Surrounding them as they walked was a pool of blood, all of it moving, seeping out of countless bodies ripped to shreds covering the sidewalks. Many of them were missing limbs, huge chunks of themselves, and even heads. It was horrible. Seth felt like he was going to vomit.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight as he walked, stepping through the wet and chunky pavement, the skateboard occasionally getting stuck on a piece of shattered bone or chunk of god knows what Seth was trodding through. Suddenly a sound made him open his eyes. The horrifying sound of flesh being ripped from their very bones. Seth stopped in his tracks, the sound coming from a alley to his direct right. With his eyes closed he didn't see it. Slowly he turned his head to face the sounds. Something hissed and snarled and screeched. Shadows were bent over, devouring another innocent soul.

The ribbon slipped from between Seth's fingers as he stared at the beasts, there were a few of them.

They had long necks, heads and bodies. Thin tails slithered like long snakes in the air. Their back legs were huge and powerful, they stood upright on them, their front legs short and close to their bodies. The claws on both their hands and feet were as big as Seth's forearms, sharp and the color of the night. Their teeth were like slender knives that so easily could tear someone to shreds. They slightly resembled bleeding, scarred, bandaged, decrepit raptors. They hadn't seemed to notice him yet, busy with their meal.

Seth froze. He didn't have a clue what he should do. Amy was still motionless on the skateboard, her face in her knees. She could probably hear them, too. She turned her head slightly, revealing only her eyes that lay upon the revolting sight before her. She did not scream, but stared at them with wide eyes, her body shaking. Slowly she stood up, forgetting about the pain in her leg. She could not take her eyes off them.

Seth turned to her, elbowing her arm until she tore her eyes from them and looked at him. He mouthed 'run' and pointed to a building across the street. The front door was slightly open. She turned and looked, nodding, her limp quickening to a full-out run across the street. The raptor's heads each bolted up simultaneously, blood dripping from their mouths. Seth reached down, grabbing his skateboard and sprinting across the street. The raptors bolted too, their reflexes unimaginably fast. They propelled themselves foreword with their powerful legs. It seemed that for every five steps Seth took, the raptors need only take one their strides were so long. They were gaining on him fast, he wasn't even halfway across the street and he could hear their cries of death, hisses and rabid growls.

Turning his torso around, he threw his skateboard behind him with all his might. He knew he had hit one, for a shriek echoed throughout the empty streets. His board seemed to slow them down. He heard their claws stop hitting the pavement as they stopped to examine the projectile, smelling it and crunching it in half with one bite. Realizing that it was not food, they continued their chase, but Seth was already nearing the door. They sped up, hurling their bodies foreword with their hind legs, leaning far foreword to their spines were parallel with the ground.

Seth shoved Amy inside the door, slamming it after him. He noticed the building had an elevator at the end of the hallway.

"Run! Get to the elevator NOW and press the top floor button!! They're strong, I don't think this door will hold them!!" Seth yelled, and Amy complied without argument. She ran as quickly as she could with her bad leg to the elevator as the raptors rammed their heard into the door. Seth followed, Amy was now in the elevator, unsure of whether or not he had enough time to get to it if she pushed the button now.

"Hit the top floor!!!' He yelled as the door behind him were rammed clear off their hinges. Amy punched the button, the doors began to close slowly as Seth ran into the elevator, making it as they were only halfway closed. Seeing their deaths running so fast straight towards them was the most terrifying thing. They couldn't move or run anywhere else, their only hope was that the slow doors could close them in a safe place before the raptors could get to them.

The one in the front of the line rammed his head into the doors, leaving a huge dent as the doors closed around the front of his head. Seth kicked his big head out from in between the metal door so they could completely close, the raptor letting out another shriek, the others trying to ram into the doors as well, their orchestra of hisses and screams fading out as the elevator doors closed and they began to move up.

They were both out of breath, on opposite sides of the small box they were in. Amy slid down the wall, her eyes closed. Seth watched her, slightly respecting her efforts to save them both. She had saved him. Without her there, the raptors would have surely caught him and ripped him to shreds.

"Thanks....Amy...." Seth said, feeling a slight tinge of guilt for hating her throughout high school, along with all of her other bitchy friends. When it came down to it, Amy was there when Seth needed her to be. He couldn't think of how else to thank her, so he kept his mouth shut as the elevator slowed to a stop and shook as it halted at the top floor.


	5. The Jaws of an Angel

Reign of Blood

Chapter Five

The Jaws of an Angel

The elevator doors opened slowly, creaking and getting jammed halfway from the large dent made by the raptor's head. Seth squeezed through first, his broad shoulders almost getting stuck. He waited for Amy to come after him who had no trouble at all, being as skinny as she was.

"How are we going to get out of here...? Those... _things_... have us trapped..." Amy muttered. Seth had been thinking of that during the entire ride up to this floor, whatever it was. He had been too distracted to look at the buttons. Suddenly the elevator gave a soft _ping_ and the doors tried to close. The bent metal doors scratches loudly against the frame as it slid closed slowly. Were those raptors smart enough to use an elevator? Seth didn't want to find out.

He quickly stuck his arm inside the door, thinking the sensor would stop automatically. It must have been broken. Seth wedged his body back in between the doors, pushing with all his might until they slowly began to open, scraping the entire way.

"Amy! You wouldn't happen to have a 2 by 4, would you?" Seth asked sarcastically. Amy watched him in his struggle, about to be crushed by the freak-doors. Seth noticed something in the wall. "There! Grab me that pipe that's sticking out of the wall! _Hurry!_" Amy hobbled over to the wall, grabbing the pipe and pulling with all her might. Unfortunately, all of her might was not enough. The pipe wouldn't budge. The doors were beginning to win the battle against Seth. Just then Amy let go of the pipe in the wall, looking below it. On the ground beneath the hole was a long pipe that had already been torn out. She picked it up and rushed back to Seth with it.

"I don't know why you didn't just ask for this one-"

"Just gimme the damn pipe!" He swiped it out of her hands and squeezed out of the narrow space between the doors, shoving the two ends of the pipe against each closing door, so it was held open about two feet. The elevator, determined to go and retrieve the monsters form downstairs, began to go down despite the fact it's doors were open. Seth ran to the wall, with a mighty heave he managed to yank the pipe out of the wall. He stuck it in between the doors just as the tip of the elevator was beginning to disspear at the floor beneath them. It jammed and stopped moving. They both sighed.

"...Sorry..." Amy apologized.

"For what? For being too slow to get me a fucking pipe when i asked for one? Or, for you and your friends making my life a living hell everyday at school? Or maybe-"

"Seth! I said I was sorry, what more do you want!" Amy raised her voice as much as she could without it shaking. Seth could see the tears held behind her eyes and was shocked at his own behavior. "Just because we didn't get along in school doesn't mean we should let each other die! Why are you taking your anger out on me!" Amy was on a roll. This was the maddest he had seen her since the monsters started coming. She must have gotten over the initial shock of it, slowly going back to her former self. But she did have a point, and Seth felt horrible for what he had said.

"...Let's just go... I... didn't' mean it..." Amy nodded, and they both began to walk down the hall opposite the elevator.

"Look..." Amy stopped in front of a door, looking above it. Seth followed her gaze. This was the door to the stairwell. He hoped the monsters weren't on their way up right now... Above the door was the number 3. They must be on the third floor.

"I'm not going in there..." Seth said. Amy reached for the doorknob. "Are you fucking stupid!" Seth grabbed her hand and pulled it away from the door.

"No. There's someone on the other side," Amy said, looking Seth in the eyes. He let go of her hand when he heard someone banging on the door. A female voice was shouting something. Amy opened the door.

There stood two girls, each in matching uniform; a blue and gold pleated, plaid skirt and a baggy t-shirt that had the number 16 on one and 2 on the other, and blue shin guards. They each had a field hockey stick in their hands. Number 2 had her arm around Number 16, and was holding her up. The tip of 16's stick was soaked in blood.

"Are you two okay?" Amy asked as they rushed through the door, closing it behind them. 16 nodded, trying to hold up 2. 2 looked a lot like her, with dark blonde, messy hair tied back, a pained look on her face. 16 was out of breath, her long blonde hair back in a high ponytail was messy, loose strands of sweaty hair covered her face. Amy and Seth led them to a room that wasn't locked, happy to know that they were in a hospital. 16 helped lay 2 down on the bed, and sat down on the edge. Neither of them had let go of their sticks.

"What happened?" Seth asked, really wanting to ask why all the girls he met all wore really short skirts. And, on top of that, why did he only meet girls? He liked them and all, and he had no problem with the skirts, but girls were weak compared to guys. And now it was officially his responsibility to keep not one wimpy girl, but three safe.

"...Have you seen my dog?" 16 asked. Seth and Amy exchanged glances. "He's a really big one... An Irish Wolfhound... He... his name is Machiavelli..." She held her hand up taller than waist-high. Seth and Amy both shook their heads. She sighed and let herself fall over backwards, laying down over her friend's legs. Seth repeated his question, and after she mumbled something about her dog and knowing it would survive, she answered. "It was in the middle of our game..." 16 started. "We got to play during school... Mac was there... he goes to all our games..." She paused, taking slow deep breaths, trying to stay calm. As she spoke she clenched and unclenched her fingers around her blood-red field hockey stick. She took her friend's dark purple one from her hands, as it was dangling off the bed and about to fall, and placed it next to her.

"It got dark, and I heard... I know it sounds weird, but... _barking, _and Mac perked up his ears and started howling... He ran towards me, in the middle of the game! He never does that... and he grabbed my stick and started pulling me away... We ran by Kathryn, who's sweep and was behind me, and I yelled at her to help me, because by that time Mac had my stick and was running away with it, like he wanted to play, but he was growling..." 16 took another deep breath. Seth and Amy watched her through the whole story, as she shifted her weight uncomfortably.

"So what happened to your friend? and Mac?" Amy asked.

"...There were _dogs_ behind us, and people were screaming... Mac... he, dropped my stick and turned around, and when we stopped he bit at my ankles, and made us keep running... We ran for the school, but there were dogs running out of the doors, so we ran to Kathryn's truck and locked the doors and windows, but the car wouldn't start so we ducked down and hid... If she had lowered her truck, like her brother was trying to convince her to, they could have smashed through the windows... But it was really high off the ground..." 16 stopped talking, she was staring at her stick and the blood drenched at the tip that crawled up the handle.

"Did you... You didn't see any monsters on the first floor, did you?" Seth asked.

"...No..." Seth sighed in relief. " But..." She trailed off.

"...But what?"

"I... I don't know... but... I thought I heard something... never mind," She tried to shake the thought out of her mind.

"When did you get here?" Seth asked.

"...A little while ago, The elevator was broken or something so we had to use the stairs..." It was then Seth noticed a beautiful silver necklace around 16's neck... He also realized he didn't know her name.

"What's your name?" He asked, starring at her necklace that shined and glistened even when there was no light to reflect off it's surface.

"Jaclyn..." Seth couldn't take his eyes off the stunning silver cross.

"Jaclyn...Where did you get that necklace?" She looked down, as if forgetting it was on.

"Shit!" She muttered under her breath. "How could I have forgotten to take that off for the game?" She whispered to herself. "...Oh, um, Kathryn gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago..." She held the small cross in her left hand, as if rubbing it for good luck. Amy wasn't looking at the necklace, however. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, deep in thought. Seth noticed this, giving her a weird look but unsure of what to say. Jaclyn talked so he didn't have to.

"...Hey, girl, what's wrong?" She said, not trying to sound polite by asking what her name was first. Amy looked up, her brows knitted in concentration.

"You... got here just after us... those.. monsters... couldn't have... could they?" Something clicked in Seth's head, Jaclyn just looked at Amy weird. What Amy was trying to get out was, there's no way those monsters could have left the building through the only door and not have ran into these two girls. Which means, that they're still in the building... Waiting... for just the right moment...


	6. Watching

Reign of Blood

Chapter Six

Watching

Seth jumped to his feet, eyes wide as he exchanged glances with Amy.

"Hey... What's wrong..?" Jaclyn asked, their terrified expressions scaring her. She watched as Seth spun around to the door, and began to rush through it. Amy stood up too, and tried to follow.

"Stay here!" Seth stopped in the doorway, whirling back around to face Amy. "You all stay here... Some one has to stay with her," He nodded towards Kathryn, who was nearly out cold on the bed. Amy slowly slouched back down, saying nothing, scooting towards Jaclyn, who sat up straight and met his forceful glare. Jaclyn said nothing, her eyes piercing right back into his. He paused, unsure of how to respond to her retaliation, then ran out the door.

Seth sped down the hallway, without a clue of what he was doing, where he was going, or why the hell he was even running. The hallway was dark, dim spread-out flickering lights illuminated a few feet of the hall at a time. He slowed to a soft tip-toe, not wanting to alert the monsters to his position. Why was he even out here in the first place? Was it all because of paranoia? Those monsters, like they'd even be smart enough to plan something like an ambush... Would they?

Seth came to an involuntary stop, frozen in place. A sound. Someone.. Something, was behind him. Footsteps, soft, muffled, quick but long strides... Seth tried to get his legs to work again, any muscle, please, just move!

The footsteps were closing in, fast. The panic running through Seth's body forced him around, facing the dark hall the echoing footsteps were coming from. A jolt of fear shot through him as the shadow approaching became merely feet away. He could hear it's hot, slow breath, almost feel it, as if it were breathing down his neck. His hair stood on end. He snapped.

Reaching his arm back, hand in a fist, he thrust his body foreword, all his weight behind the punch. The shadow gasped, and ducked. Seth swung inches away from it's head. As quick as the shadow had ducked it lunged at him, grabbing him around the waist and coming at him with such force he was knocked backwards. Seth threw his arms in front of his face, eyes shut tight as the thing pounced on top of him.

"_Seth!_" Seth opened his eyes to see the young girl Jaclyn sitting on top of him, hockey stick held above her head, ready to smash his in.

"What the fuck are you doing!" He yelled. Jaclyn jumped up to her feet, grabbing onto Seth's arm and yanking him up harder than he expected.

"I'm sorry! I... I was looking for you, and I didn't... see you... and then you... I'm sorry!"

"Why were you looking for me! I told you all to stay in the goddamn room! Is Amy and that other girl with you, too!" Seth yelled, expecting to see Jaclyn's wide eyes fill with tears of shock, an Amy-worthy reaction. Jaclyn's eyes narrowed in anger. A grin spread across her face. Seth was in awe.

"Did I scare you?" She teased. Seth's face was burning with anger.

"No! I... You... You were pretty fucking...too... Damn you!" Jaclyn's grin widened as she watched Seth struggle for words under the flickering lights, dark shadows cast across his red face. "Shutup! Why the hell did you come after me!" Seth tried to redeem himself, tried to be forceful again but having no effect at all on Jaclyn.

"I want you to tell me what the hell is going on, that's why! Why did you run away like that? Too many girls at once so overwhelming? Didn't want us to see your bo-"

"Shut-_up!" _Seth yelled louder, slamming his fist onto the wall. Jaclyn stopped smiling and winced. "I've had enough of you in this past five minutes!" A hiss in the distance cut Seth off. A loud, seeping, harsh hiss, followed by the soft rattle of beasts growling at the weak animal in the pack, homing in on it, waiting for it to be separated from the group...

_Thud...Thud...Thud_... The soft sound of many big feet hitting the ground as they closed in. The two involuntarily edged closer, until they were leaning against each other, slowly backing up. They each stopped dead in their tracks as the growling came from behind them too. Jaclyn spun around, she and Seth now back-to-back. Jaclyn held her hockey stick in front of her chest defensively.

"_Shit... Shit...Seth... Whadda we do now, whadda we do now...!_" Jaclyn sang a nervous song, hopping from foot to foot like a toddler who had to go to the bathroom. Seth looked frantically around, his eyes locked on the dim outline of a doorframe. What could have been a doorframe. What... might be a doorframe.

The growls were getting louder, the footsteps quicker and tail thrashings harsher, whipping through the air with impatience. Who'da known those things could make such an intricate plan? Fascinating.

Without thinking Seth grabbed onto Jaclyn's arm, running for the doorframe and barging into it. The door swung open, Seth threw Jaclyn inside before him and slammed it closed, locking it with a loud clank of metal. Before the door was securely closed the raptors had bolted foreword. They rammed their heads into the door with loud crashes, Seth leaning against the door as if that would keep them out.

"_The window!_" Seth yelled, pointing frantically at the cloudy glass on the other side of the room, full sentences far beyond his grasp at this point. Jaclyn ran for the window, dropping her stick on the floor to use both hands to try and pry it open. It wouldn't budge. After a second more she reached for her stick, pulling it back like a baseball bat and swinging it into the glass. The sound of it cracking could hardly be heard over the screeches and growls and crashes of the monsters outside.

She swung again, the small crack growing into a long spider web that stretched across the glass. The cloudy surface of the glass suddenly shrank to the size of a fist in the center of the window, the rest pure black. Jaclyn jumped back, letting out a cry of terror. The pale, empty circle looked around the room, in a complete circle, then locked on Jaclyn, watching her as she backed up, not looking away for a second. The cracks on the glass distorted it as it's pupil shrunk more, watching, examining.

Seth ran over to her, shoving her to the side. The eye followed. Seth crammed her into the closet as the door's hinges snapped and creaked. He got in with her, shoving her to the back and closing the door. There was no where left to go. The door burst open. For a split second there was silence.

The raptors clicked their tongues and rattled at each other, snapping jaws aggressively and thrashing tails as they flooded the small room, heads held high in the air, sniffing. Some bent down, smelling the old carpet, the walls, gnawing on the furniture.

Seth and Jaclyn stayed perfectly still, each shaking, pressed against the other. As Jaclyn caught her breath her voice quivered. Seth held his hand in front of her mouth to tell her to calm down and control her breaths. She took slower, deep breaths, trying not to make a sound. The raptors were listening.

Suddenly they each perked up their heads, one by one. They stopped chewing the legs of the bed and nightstand, their heads up, looking around. One screeched a long cry of agony, a signal only they understood. One by one they fled the room, heads down, bodies stiff and foreword. Their many footsteps became lost in the distance. Seth let out a quiet sigh. Jaclyn went limp.

Seth opened the closet door, Jaclyn would have fallen over if Seth hadn't caught her and forced her to stand. Her legs refused to cooperate. Seth led her to the bed, where she sat down and put her head in her hands.

"It's ok... They're gone..." Seth reassured her. She shook her head slowly as she brought her knees up to her chest, her field hockey stick gripped tightly in front of her.

Words failed Jaclyn. She opened her mouth, closed it, trying to force out a sentence, even a fragment, but nothing came. Seth put his hand on her shoulder. She winced, but didn't back away.

"...is it... there...?" She whispered.

"No, I told you, they're-"

"Not the monsters... the... the window..." She stammered, refusing to even look up. Seth glanced at the window. All that was there was darkness, night had settled in. The silver cracks along the glass gleamed dimly.

Something bumped outside the window, making them both jump slightly. Nothing was there. A single trickle of crimson leaked from the sill. Like a miniature waterfall it poured down to the carpet, masking the wall beneath it with red. Seth stared as the carpet soaked up the blood that seemed to keep pouring, thicker and thicker...

He stood up, pulling Jaclyn to her feet in one swift motion. She glanced at the window, exactly what Seth was trying to prevent. It's hard to not look at what you're avoiding. Jaclyn didn't make a sound, her mouth hung open and her eyes wide. He pulled her into the hallway quickly, nearly dragging her. Her muscles didn't want to work all of a sudden, like something was pulling her back into the room. Seth had to clench onto her wrist with his hand tight, never even thinking of letting go. He ran, the Jaclyn-zombie following like an obedient dog. What the hell was going on? Maybe if he got her away from that room she'd be ok...


	7. Lost Souls

Reign of Blood

Chapter Seven

Lost Souls

Seth sat with Jaclyn in the small room, both of them on the floor, leaning against the door. She hadn't spoken a word. They were in another patient's room, like the one he had left Amy and Kathryn in. This one was smaller, mainly because of boxes piled up, taking up space, filling the corners and the walls. Finally she spoke.

"...Did you... See it?" She asked, hesitantly, turning her head to look him in the eyes.

"See what? ...The blood?" Seth muttered back. He had never noticed how beautiful and blue her eyes were, so light and pale, almost a tint of gray...

"No... the... before it... it was..." She paused, never blinking or looking away. She trailed off, shaking her head. "It's... nothing... Forget it." She tried to get the image of it out of her mind, but wherever she looked, eyes closed or open, there it was. It was burned onto her retina. She couldn't escape it.

"...I hope the others are ok..." Seth said, trying to change the subject. In all truth he couldn't have cared less. Two girls, both with hurt legs, the odds were against. He was betting they were dead the moment Jaclyn left to find him.

"No, you don't," Jaclyn's stern and straight foreword response caught Seth off guard.

"What?" He had already completely forgotten what he had said.

"You don't care about Kathryn, you don't know her, that's understandable. You don't care about Amy, that's what I don't get. Isn't she your friend?" Jaclyn asked the wall. She was staring into nothing, her eyes focused on the far wall. Seth took a minute to reply.

"...No. She's not my friend, she's someone I found who hangs over me like a poodle in heat; useless and annoying," Seth's words surprised himself. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Jaclyn turned to him, eyes filled with shock.

"That's harsh," She muttered. "Is that really how you feel? I'm not a big fan of the cheerleaders myself, hell, they all got a big mouth from screaming for the football players, and not only at the games," Seth almost smiled at her comment. "But man, you got a lot of nerve. Sure, I might joke about how slutty they are, but that's no reason to sit back and watch one of them die. That's pretty cold." Seth fell silent at her remarks, unsure of how to respond. Whatever he said was sure to piss her off more. Seth said nothing.

After a few minutes, Jaclyn sighed, eyes closed.

"So what now?" Seth asked, knowing neither of them wanted to stay in this room until more monsters came. Jaclyn stood up, leaning on the wall as she steadied herself.

"...I don't care where you want to go, but I'm going to find Kathryn and Mac. Maybe she and that Amy girl are together. You can come with me if you want," Jaclyn strode over to the door, walking slowly as she talked. Seth stood up, too, an unspoken agreement. They left the room.

Seth followed a few feet behind Jaclyn. She looked in every room, opening doors and peeking into them. Finally they were near the end of the long hall, near the stairwell where they had started. They opened the ajar door that Kathryn and Amy were in.

Nothing.

It was eerily empty, sheets fixed smooth like no one had ever been there, no signs of blood on the carpet from Kathryn's leg...

"Kathryn?" Jaclyn whispered into the stillness of the room. Even the air was dry, musty, old... This was not the same room they had left Amy and Kathryn in.

Jaclyn turned back to the hall, leaving Seth in the room. She looked down the hall, in the stairwell with a disapointed glare as Seth further examined the room. Before turning away and going back into the hall, something caught his eye... The same thing he had seen in the other room, blood had poured from the window in this room, too... But it was dry, like it had been there a while. A small patch of the carpet around it was a faded brown from the dry blood. The window was cracked, too, like something had tried to get in. Or get out.

Something made Jaclyn whirl around to the stairwell she had just peered down. A bark.

"_Mac!_" She yelled, not hesitating to fling the door wide open and rush down the stairs, no longer in stealth-mode. Seth was late to run after her, eyes fixed on the room, examining the way the cracks on the window looked so familiar...

He flew down the steps, taking them two at a time, but still couldn't catch up to Jaclyn.

She burst through the door on the ground floor, it banged into the wall and flew back right into Seth, knocking him back and slamming in his face. He tried the doorknob. It was jammed.

"Jaclyn! Come back! Open the door!" He yelled to her, but he could already hear the two big metal doors in the very front of the building slowly being pushed open, scraping along the floor. Her footsteps were lost in the distance.

"Jaclyn!"

A scream.

"_Jaclyn!_"

Seth gave up trying to open the door. It was hopelessly jammed, Jaclyn on the other side, maybe in danger... He ran up a flight of stairs, and tried the door labeled "2F." It wouldn't open. Feeling tired, Seth ran up another flight of stairs. The door he and Jaclyn had just left through was jammed too...

Having nowhere left to go, it was up the last steps, to the roof. The door was ajar. He pushed it open, and ran to the edge of the roof. He tripped on the way, because for some reason the roof was sagging deeply inward near the middle, and ran straight into the fence. The fog was the only thing that was visible, he saw no movement at all through the mist as he looked down at the streets for any sign of Jaclyn.

Seth turned around, after finding nothing in the dense fog beyond the cage of the roof. He was alone. The air was cold and wet, beads of icy sweat formed on his head from the mist gently being blown by the wind. The breeze was almost pushing him to the other side of the roof. He could see some loose papers that had blown out of a notebook being scattered in the far corner. He walked over to them.

April 20th

They talked to me again today. They keep coming back, they won't leave me alone... I can't sleep anymore. They're in my dreams, telling me "it's coming, it's coming..."

April 11th

Today I saw a girl. She said she'd been sacrificed for a demon to live.

May 5th

Miranda told me no one without a purpose will survive. I asked her what my purpose was. She told me They saved me, because I looked so much like Her... Do they really need another one? I think they're trying to keep her alive...

All of the papers were filled with short journal entries, signed by no one. Seth read them one by one, each as confusing as the last. "The angel will keep killing until she finds what she is looking for..." What the hell? The writings kept talking about an angel, and other religious crap that meant nothing to Seth.

He shuffled through the papers, and found drawings, too... Some were of a church, some a girl with long black hair that covered her face, with giant wings, a cross...

"_WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU'RE DOING!_" Images flashed before his eyes, a man with brown hair yelled as a beautiful angel was chained to a giant cross... A woman with white blonde hair grinned maniacally, standing at the altar...

The voice made Seth drop the papers, standing up and bolting around. No one was there... It was... A dream? No...

Seth tried to calm down, his heart pounding out of his chest. He kept looking around frantically, to find something, anything. He was alone. The papers blew away and rustled on the rooftop, until they were stopped by the fence.

Someone was coming up the stairs, making no footsteps at all. The only sound was an ear-splitting sound of metal scraping metal, clanking on every step...

Something told Seth to run. Don't make a sound, just run. Climb the fence, jump. It's better to die than to find out what's making that noise...

Seth froze.


	8. Reality

Reign of Blood

Chapter Eight

Reality

_CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-CLANK_...

Something heavy, hard, metal, was hitting each step as it climbed, dragging along the cement stairs. Seth's back was to the stairwell, his muscles stiff as he listened to the sound get louder, closer...

Suddenly the sound's intervals ceased, it became one long dragging noise as it scraped against the roof. Seth's head began to pound, pulse in pain with the dragging of the metal...

He couldn't move, eyes wide, staring at the floor. He couldn't even look behind him, turn his head a little. His body refused to do what he told it to.

The noise stopped directly behind him. Silence...

Death sounded good, very good...

A chill was sent up Seth's spine, then back down, a cold blade running down his back. He felt cold all over, unable to even think anymore he just stayed still. Something made him move, made him jump to the side as a blade as big as he was smashed into the ground, tearing a hole right where he had been.

The pain worsened, almost unbearable. He had no control over himself, he barely even knew what he was doing. He could hear someone's voice, a man's... Deep, like his own... He was saying something Seth couldn't understand, he couldn't focus on the words, or anything else.

Something inside of Seth forced him to fight off the urge to just lie there and bleed, wait for death to come...

A sharp pain in Seth's chest tore him from his trance, the pain in his back disappeared at once. As Seth awoke he saw it, standing above him, a blood-red glow, as he fell backwards. The metallic sound was loud in Seth's ear until everything got dark, and the sound faded away, _CLANK-CLANK-CLANK, _back down the steps so far away...

Seth awoke, lying on his back, and tried to sit up. The pain in his chest forced him to quickly lie back down. He tried to push himself back up again with his hands, but his arms wouldn't move... They were crossed over his chest, strapped tightly...

He tried to move his legs. They were stuck together, tied with rope.

"What the fuck...!" Seth muttered, cringing in pain. Even something as simple as breathing made his chest ache. He leaned back, and tried not to move, the pain was agonizing...

As his eyes got used to the dark room, he forced his head to the sides to have a look. The floor he was on wasn't hard at all, at first he had thought he was on a bed... But the walls were padded, too... The door in front of him was shut tight, a small window at head-level.

The silence was deafening...

Had he gone insane? What the hell was he doing in here? Was everything just a dream? The pain in his chest told him it wasn't.

He still couldn't move. Seth shut his eyes, letting the darkness settle back in.

Seth didn't know how long he slept, if he even did. He felt just as tired as before, just as aching, just as exhausted...

He heard the sound that had woken him up. Footsteps... soft and distant, and someone was crying...

"Hey!" Seth yelled to the voice, painfully bringing his legs to his chest and kicking the door. "_Hey!_" He continued to yell and kick madly, not wanting to spend another second in this room...

Seth stopped kicking the door long enough to hear the footsteps and sobs getting closer. Whoever it was had heard him.

The door clicked, and slowly creaked open. A girl's head peeked through, her short black hair a curtain in front of her face. Seth relaxed his sore muscles, waiting for her to approach him, untie him...

She did not.

"I.. I'm sorry... Seth... You have to stay here..." She whispered softly, the same timid voice as before. "Please be quiet..." The door slowly creaked closed, and clicked loudly. Seth was confused.

"...Wait! Come back!" Seth yelled, but to no avail. The door did not open again. "Please! Come back!"


	9. Theme of Laura

Reign of Blood

Chapter Nine

Theme of Laura

Amy limped down the hall, slowly, so slowly it was as if she were barely moving at all. The halls were so dark, so quiet, not even her steady footsteps broke the deafening hush that fell over the dank corridor like a fog. She leaned against the wall, her body pressed against it to guide her through the darkness.

She did not look in any of the rooms as she passed them by, her eyes locked in the blackness in front of her. The room she had left was stained with red. Every room she passed looked the same in the corner of her mind, the same gruesome sight she could not get out of her eyes. She closed her eyes but the back of her eyelids were crimson and held the same image.

Why? Why had they not taken her? Those monsters had that poor girl pegged, they knew she was too weak to run. They knew she would be an easy target.

But why, then, had they not taken her? She was hurt, bleeding, even, yet they could not, or refused to, smell her blood. Like a shark to crimson water they had sought to kill that poor girl.

Their eyes, oh, their eyes... Piercing into her, watching, waiting... They did not make a move. They talked to her with gaping mouths a foreign language, screeched at her, snapped with their mighty jaws and jerked at her, but something was holding them back. They ran.

Now she limped down the hallway that stretched on forever, it seemed. She felt alone, clutching the cold, hard wall, wishing it had a pulse, wishing it would hold her the way she clutched onto it, wishing it would turn to her and say that things would be ok...

Wishing it were Seth. Why? Why him? Of all people, why on earth that cruel, selfish, heartless man? Because, she told herself, he's-

_Thud!_ Something made her stop dead in her tracks. A sound carried through the walls. Once... Twice... Then another time. The walls pulsed. She froze.

It was faint, but it was there. The wall she was pressed against was... pulsing. Suddenly Amy gasped, pushing on the wall and throwing herself backwards. She landed hard on her butt, and scrambled backwards until her back was against the far wall. The pulsing seemed to reach through the floor right out to her.

The pace of the thumps quickened. Amy gasped, bringing her knees up to her chest and shutting her eyes tight. The thumping stopped suddenly. The hall was completely silent. If she couldn't hear the pounding of her own heart trying to jump out of her chest she would have thought she went deaf.

Trembling, she rose to her feet. She listened for the sound of the foreign pulse. Nothing.

Amy continued down the hall, afraid to touch the walls she limped slightly in the center of the hall. She couldn't shake the feeling something was near, watching her, breathing down her neck... Chills went up her spine. She shook it off.

It seemed like she was walking forever, down a never-ending dark hall that her eyes couldn't adjust to no matter how wide she opened them. She trudged along, elbows pressed tightly against her sides, hands clutching her wrists, muscles tense.

Something seeped into her conscience mind, unnoticed, faint, distant. She suddenly remembered that she hadn't slept in an eternity. Her wide eyes began to close halfway, but she kept walking. She felt like collapsing right there, sleeping on the floor in the middle of this freak-filled world. Who cares what got her now? Everyone was dead. She hadn't seen Seth in a long time, what if...

No.

He'll be fine. She sighed. Her sigh turned into a tired yawn. Her muscles loosened a little as her mind prepared for sleep. That sound... It was getting louder now, but still faint, still unnoticed...

It was almost drawing Amy in. She swayed slightly as she walked, fighting sleep. That sound... It was beautiful...

She continued, past another smaller hallway on her left leading to a tiny area and four shut doors. She suddenly swayed too far to the right, and crashed into the wall with a muffled thump. Immediately she jumped back to her feet, aware of her surroundings once more.

The sound was loud in her ears now. She could hear it's music, every string softly plucked by bare hands, too soft to be using a pick... It had a sad feel to it, depressing, almost...

She picked up her pace, walking to the door the music was coming from. It was beautiful music... She leaned against the door, listening to the soft chords beyond it. She rested her hand on the doorknob, whoever could play such music couldn't be dangerous...

Slowly she pushed it open. The room was seemingly big, because there was absolutely no furniture in it at all. There, in the middle of the room on the floor was a man, acoustic on his lap. His back was to her. He didn't notice her come in. The tragic song continued, Amy was flooded by the sudden loudness of it as it hit her ears without anything to muffle the sound. She stood in the doorway as listened, watching as his hands slid up and down the neck of the guitar, precisely hitting every note.

"If you're going to watch, close the door." The man's sudden speech made Amy jump. She didn't know he had heard her come in. His song didn't stop.

"That's a really nice song..." Amy said, slowly and hesitantly pushing the door shut behind her. The man still didn't look at her. His shaggy blonde hair was untamed and hung down low on his neck. It looked wet. As Amy examined the man more, she noticed that his clothes seemed to be soaked, he was sitting in a puddle of clear water. He was shivering...

The man did not respond, but kept playing his sad song. Amy approached him cautiously. He didn't move any more than he had to play his song. As she looked around the room she noticed some papers on the floor to his right. She strained her eyes to get a better look without getting too close. Under the papers was a picture of a woman...

"...You're really good... Did you write this song?" Amy said quietly, feeling very uneasy. Once again, the man said nothing. "You look cold... Why are you so wet?" She said in a soft voice, not wanting to disrupt nor make him mad. For a long time he said nothing. His song kept on ringing in Amy's ears, telling a sad story. She didn't have to understand the words to know it didn't end well.

Finally his song ended, repeating the last chords until the notes melted together and faded out.

"She wont let me die... That girl... If only I hadn't been so selfish... If I hadn't brought her there none of this would have happened..." He muttered through his music, his voice quivering.

"What are you talking about...?" Amy said, eyes fixed on the picture at his side. It was then she saw it had been ripped right down the center. Slowly Amy walked around him, a few feet away to give her a better chance to run if he tried anything. She stopped directly in front of him. He did not look up to see her. He kept his head down, so his shaggy hair concealed his face. He was still shaking, even more, as if her presence terrified him.

"You... You're going to die..." What the man said made Amy take an involuntary step backwards. Not quite the words, but the way he said it sent chills up her spine.

"...Wha...What... did you say?" Amy squeaked out. The comfort of his music was no more. His hands rested on the guitar, immobile. She looked past the instrument on his lap. His chest was moving slowly up and down as he took deep, hoarse breaths, as if he were having trouble breathing. Water dripped from his shaggy, soaking wet bangs and make a steady soft tapping noise on his guitar, the only sounds that filled the now silent room. Unease was beginning to take hold of Amy.

The puddle around the man was motionless, a black pit with no reflection. Amy stared into the dark water, but nothing stared back.

"...You cant stop it... You might as well just give up..." The man said without moving at all, not even a ripple was cast across the darkness around him.

"...Who are you...?" Amy narrowed her eyes, subconsciously leaning down to try and get a look at his face. He stayed still, face obscured by blonde hair as he watched the same spot on the ground, burning a hole through it with such intense concentration.

Slowly he tilted his head up, breaking his eyes from the floor to meet Amy's.

"...James..." Staring right back at Amy was a thin, pale, tired face, laden with many sleepless nights. His bangs hid his eyes and forehead, but through the hair Amy could still make out dark bags under the man's eyes. He watched her with lifeless, dull blue eyes as empty as the puddle of black.

Slowly he moved his trembling hand towards the pile of papers at his side, rummaging through them. He found that he was feeling for; cold, hard metal.

"She wont let me die, she wont let me die..." He muttered over and over again, his crazed tone getting increasingly louder. Amy backed up more, towards the far wall. The man lifted a gun in his hand, the papers that had covered it fluttered to the floor. Amy's eyes widened. She gasped as he lifted it slowly to his head. He pressed the metal barrel against his temple.

"Goodbye... Amy... Sorry I couldn't help you..." A loud gunshot. Amy screamed. Her eyes swelled with tears as she threw her hands up over her face to shield her from the splatter of blood that dotted the floor and her clothes. The blonde man went limp, the gun falling from his open hand to the ground, clanking loudly. He sat slumped over his guitar, face down, blood pouring out of the two holes in his head. His shaggy blonde hair was soon turned crimson as blood dripped quickly down the loose strands. The blood soon spread to the pool of cold water around him, dying it a dark scarlet.

Amy stared with wide, watery eyes at the blurred sight before her. With her back against the wall, Amy slid the perimeter of the room until she was to the door, her eyes not leaving his body once. He had stopped shaking now, and was perfectly still. It was now Amy's turn to tremble. She felt suddenly very cold, chills were sent up and down her spine. It was as if the room was suddenly flooded by cold air. She backed out of the room, and her body felt instantly warmer.

Fighting of tears Amy slowly trudged away, back the way she had came. His sad tune seemed to still echo inside the room, playing in Amy's head, getting softer and fading to nothing as Amy left.


	10. Call My Name

Reign of Blood

Chapter Ten

Call My Name

As Amy walked back down the hall once more, something was pulling her again, this time to the hall she had overlooked, the narrow hall leading to a small dead-end corridor with four doors lined up. Amy turned and walked down the hall. Someone was down here... She could hear them...

"Seth?" Amy tried to call out, but her twisted throat wouldn't allow anything but a squeak. As she neared the doors she noticed each had a small square window near the top. Slowly she stood on her toes, leaning in to look into the first of the four doors.

Nothing but an empty, small, padded room. It was dark inside, lit only by a single swinging light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling. Back and forth it went, as if there were some unseen force pushing it gently. Amy backed up and walked to the next window, door number two.

Whatever was in these rooms was locked up, she reassured herself. As Amy looked at the window she noticed this one was fogged up, the window was almost completely white with opaque mist. She peered into the window, trying to squint through the blur. She tried to wipe her hand across the glass, but to no avail. It was foggy on the opposite side. She walked to the next window.

Door number three lead to empty room. The light bulb in this room had gone out, the only light was the small amount of dim light shining from outside the window which her head obstructed, casting a shadow on the floor and wall. It was then she noticed there was light coming from somewhere else, from the far left side of the padded wall. There were a few holes and tears in the padding, and a dim light shone through each.

Suddenly Amy gasped, there was something on the other side of the wall, something clawing and tearing, trying to get through. It had already managed to scratch holes in the drywall.

Amy backed up.

"Seth?" She called out a little louder. No response. She ran instinctively to the fourth and last window. What she saw made her cringe in disgust.

There in the small, padded room was countless, bloody, mutated... things... only countless because they all kept moving, crawling over top of each other, climbing the walls and devouring a few of the weakest ones. Blood was smeared over the window, soaked into the floor and walls. A few of them were clawing at the wall, digging a hole into it. Other joined, and now almost all of them were clawing at the wall, pulling out the insulation and ripping it to shreds. The sound of their claws slashing holes in the wall was loud and hearable even through the heavy metal doors.

Amy ran back to door number three. The monsters had ripped a small hole in the wall and flooded into the room as if their dam just broke, leaving bloody footprints and tearing apart this room just like the last.

Something caught Amy's eye. The window to door number two, the fog moved... She ran to the door, and pressed her face against the glass to try and see through it. Something was wrong. The fog didn't look like fog at all... it looked like... _feathers..._

Suddenly the wall of fog was swept away so fast Amy jumped back and landed on the floor. It wasn't the whiteness moving that scared her, it was what was in place of the fog that made her throw herself backwards. A face... A woman with menacing features, hair as black as night, stood directly in front of her, the only thing in between them a door. Panic overcame Amy.

She quickly jumped back to her feet, but when she looked at the window, the face was gone. She ran to the window again, and hesitantly looked through the window.

"_Seth!_" She screamed, banging her fist on the door to try and get his attention. He was lying on his back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Amy wrenched open the door, pulling the metal giant with all her strength.

She dropped her knees beside her fallen friend, shaking his shoulders to try and make him get up. He didn't move.

"Seth, what's wrong?" She tried to lean over him to force him to look her in the eyes. He stared through her.

A sound made her jump to her feet and whirl around to face the wall. Something was scratching, clawing, snarling, just beyond the padded wall. She turned back to Seth.

"Seth! Get up! We don't have much time!" She grabbed his shoulders again and made him sit up. His head hung down, he watched the floor. Amy yelled his name again, but nothing seemed to snap him out of his trance. The monsters were starting to get through the drywall, ripping small holes on their side of the wall, screaming, hissing, taunting her.

_They're going to get us if we don't get out of here!_

Amy made up her mind. She grabbed Seth under his arms that seemed to be strapped to his chest and heaved, dragging him slowly out of the room that could easily be each of their deaths. Seth lay as still and as limp as a dead fish.

Arms with sharp claws on the end were beginning to reach through the hole as Amy got Seth out of the room. She dropped him on the floor, his head hitting the ground with a loud thump.

Full bodies breached the wall as she struggled with the door once more, pushing it again with what little strength she had left from lugging Seth. The monsters poured in through the gap, the hole that could have barely fit a human through seemed to let in these creatures freely as they contorted their bodies to make themselves fit.

The door clanked shut with an echoing metallic sound as the monsters hissed and slashed in defeat, gobbling up each other in anger. Out of breath, Amy sat down beside him.

"...You shouldn't have done that..." He said in a deep, rough voice too harsh to be his own. Amy stared at his emotionless face, his empty eyes that refused to look at her. "...He should have died..." Suddenly Seth began to quiver slightly, as if trying to shake off chills. "...He should have died... _He should have died!_"

Amy didn't realize what she had done until she saw her open hand held up in the air, his head turned to the side from the force of the blow. Seth blinked a few times, his eyes coming back into focus.

"Seth! I'm so sorry!" Amy stammered, not knowing why she had hit him. Whatever the reason she was grateful, it seemed to bring him back to reality. He looked around with a confused, tired look on his face.

"...ow... my head..." For the first time since she found him he looked her directly in the eyes. Feeling a little bad for letting his head hit the ground so hard, she stared back, feeling her eyes swell up with tears again. Amy let herself fall over his chest and hugged him around the neck. She immediately backed away when she felt him wince in pain, his entire upper body tightening.

"What's wrong, Seth?" She asked, distracted by the monsters in the cell who had not stopped hissing and screeching. He didn't answer her, his eyes were shut tightly and his teeth clenched.

Slowly he relaxed, his breaths short and struggling, as if there was a huge weight on his chest. Like a protective mother Amy tried to slowly get him to sit up, her arm around his back. Cringing and gasping for air, he let her lift him so he was sitting upright.

Amy tried to move his reluctant arms to his sides, thinking if he loosened up he could breathe easier. She then saw why he hadn't moved them sooner.

"...What the hell...? Who did this, Seth?" She tried to force his arms to move even the slightest to give him more breathing space, but he was bound tightly. She ran her hand down his back until she found the knot, where the two long sleeves were tied together. She began to untie it. The knot proved to be more of a challenge than she thought

Amy hissed a curse under her breath. Seth didn't have enough breath to ask what was wrong. Amy tried to explain to him, without making her sound completely incompetent, that she couldn't untie him.

"It's ok... you've done enough..." Seth muttered, trying to get her to stop crying. "Thank... you..." But Amy didn't give up. She dug her nails into the knot, even tried using her teeth.

Eventually the knot gave in and loosened. Seth took in a deep breath, the first one in a while as Amy ripped of the straight jacket. She let him lay back down and catch his breath, for at this point, she needed to catch her own and calm down.

It was then she noticed his legs were bound together as well. A thick rope tied his ankles, all the way up to his knees together. Whoever did this didn't want him going anywhere.

The creatures were getting smarter. They now were spread out in every room, each of them crowed around the four small windows, their breath hot and steaming up the glass. The ear-piercing sound of their claws on the surface of the glass was deafening. It was like a thousand nails on chalkboards, each monster clawing, screeching, trying desperately to get out and taste human flesh...


	11. Nine Lives

Reign of Blood

Chapter Eleven

Nine Lives

Amy knew she shouldn't have but she did anyways. She panicked.

Screaming, eyes full of tears, she ran. Down the hall, turn, keep running. Fear is an excellent motivator.

She ran into a room, picked up the first heavy thing she saw on the nightstand, and hurled it into the window. It shattered outward, the glass raining down into the dark streets. Without even looking outside, for that was not her destination, she reached into the window frame and wrenched loose the longest shard of glass still stuck there.

Running back down the hall was nothing but a blur of crimson walls. Suddenly she was back at Seth's side, glass shard held above her head. Seth was wide awake at this point, his eyes wide as she brought the sharp glass down into the ropes around his legs.

A few ropes snapped, but most held. Amy cursed again, cutting the ropes as fast as she could with what little resources she had at her disposal. At last Seth's legs were free. Amy grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up.

With one short yell of pain, Seth forced them both back onto the ground. Without realizing it, he had squeezed her wrist and pulled her onto her knees as he pulled back.

"Seth! Get up!" Amy screamed, trying to stand up herself. Seth wouldn't let go of her arm. The monsters were getting louder. The loud crackle of glass cracking sounded over them. "_Seth!_"

Realizing what he was doing, Seth let go of her arm. Amy whirled around to look at the doors. Door number one at the beginning of the row was spider webbed with growing cracks. The others weren't far behind.

Shards of glass broke from the small window of door number one, the monsters came flowing out before all of the glass had even hit the hard ground. They spread out, watching Seth and Amy with huge eyes, big and yellow with long black slits. They were blocking the only way out, the only hall leading away from the dead-end Seth and Amy now backed up into. They were trapped.

Amy stayed in front of Seth as he slowly scooted backwards until his back was against the far wall. She held her shard of glass out defensively, crouching down as she slowly backed up too.

She stood above Seth, who continued to struggle to breath underneath her. With no options left Amy took a swing at the monsters closing in. They ducked, backed up, anything to avoid her futile attacks. Like a pack of wolves they continued to swarm, all of the monsters giving up with their windows and going through the padded chambers to the first room.

They all screamed louder now, their victory battle cries filled the entire floor. They seemed to be trying to get around Amy to Seth, maybe because he was down, he didn't have a weapon, he was weakened. Whatever the reason, Amy thought, like hell they would get past her.

She screamed again, unable to even hear herself over their cries. The space between her and death was decreasing at a steady pace. She couldn't give up, if she let down her guard, even for a second, it would all be over for both of them.

Something came over Amy. She lunged foreword, and the beasts backed up, backs arched like terrifying, mutated cats.

Feeling empowered, Amy was about to take another step towards them when they each suddenly tensed up and were silent. They looked behind them with wide unblinking eyes, the slits darting around like mad. Then Amy heard it... a long, gruff, howl...

As soon as the sound hit her ears a dog came bolting around the corner, running so fast it slid across the hard ground, it's claws scratching into the floor. The monsters went wild, hissing, spitting, screaming, their attention now focused on the animal.

The dog was huge, Amy had never seen a dog that big in her life. It looked more the size of a baby horse than a dog. Seconds after the dog had appeared something else came skidding to a halt at it's side, a girl...

"Crowd control!" She lifted a stick above her head, the cue for her ally to attack. As one, jaws and the stick ripped through the seemingly endless mob of monsters. But they just kept getting back up... It was as if they each had nine lives, none of them would stay down.

But they didn't attack either. Like a crowd who just heard a gunshot, the creatures each ducked for cover; scattering away, running up the walls and back into their cage. The dog and his owner showed no mercy. In seconds the monsters were back in the small padded rooms, hissing through the open window, almost taunting the dog, for they were out of reach.

In one leap the dog jumped up to its hind legs, front paws on door number one. The monsters screamed in terror, the dog's head was up to the window. He snapped and barked at them until they retreated further into their den.

"Atta boy, Mac!" Jaclyn rewarded her dog by petting it's giant head. "You two ok?" Jaclyn turned to see Seth, close to blacking out, and Amy, frozen in her stance, legs shaking. Her legs finally gave way and she began to fall. Jaclyn darted to her and caught her before she could hit the ground.

Amy was crying, her heart pounding out of her chest. She let Jaclyn lower her to the ground next to Seth.

"Ok, Amy, just calm down... Take your time, Mac's got us covered..." She tried to reassure her. Amy took deep breaths, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.

"..Thanks.. Jaclyn..." She squeaked.

"No problem! What, you thought I would just run off and not come back just in time to save your asses?" She smiled feebly at Amy, every few seconds turning to Mac to make sure he had the monsters under control. She looked past Amy to Seth. "Seth! You ok over there?" Seth didn't respond.

Feeling better, Amy stood back up, her legs not shaking and able to hold her up. They both rushed over to Seth, who was curled in a tight ball in the corner. Mac barked to let them know that the initial shock of them coming was wearing off, the monsters were getting more daring and trying to climb out one by one without getting bitten.

"Seth?" Jaclyn said.

"...it hurts..."

"Amy, go to his other side. We're going to have to drag him somewhere safer," Amy complied, but to be honest had had enough dragging of Seth for one day. On the count of three they each pulled him to his feet, putting his arms around their shoulders. They dragged him out of the dead-end hallway, his entire body limp. He seemed to be out cold.

Jaclyn couldn't hold on to both her stick and Seth. She dropped the stick, grabbing Seth around the waist to get a better hold.

Amy noticed how much lighter Seth was, maybe because Jaclyn could have picked him up by herself. Together they carried him down the hall, his limp body not complaining or saying a word.

"Mac!" The huge dog came sprinting out of the hall after them, he probably wouldn't have moved an inch unless Jaclyn had told him to.

"Stick!" As if he understood her command completely, her bent down and picked her hockey stick up with his gaping jaws. He trotted behind them, ears perked up, listening, nose in the air. No way anything could sneak up on them again.

"Amy, I think the elevators out... We came up the stairs... but I think we should carry him to a room until he wakes up..." Jaclyn asked, the weight of Seth starting to slow her down and make her breaths get shorter. Amy had been out of breath for too long. A rest sounded good, especially with a guard dog...


	12. Calling

Reign of Blood

Chapter Twelve

Calling

Amy sat on the side of the bed Seth slept on, watching his chest slowly move up and down. He didn't seem to be struggling to breathe anymore.

Jaclyn sat directly across the room from Amy atop a stack of boxes in the corner, Mac at her heels. There was something in her eyes... A longing, an empty sorrow... She blinked and it was gone. Jaclyn looked away, her hand rising to hold the silver cross around her neck.

"Hey, Amy...?" Jaclyn muttered. Amy looked at her. "Where... Where's Kathryn?"

Just then Mac began to growl. Jaclyn pat his head reassuringly. His growl became faint, lost in the distance it seemed, until it was only barely a hushed roll of distant thunder, as soft and unnoticed as a cat's purr.

Mac's ears were perked up. He had stopped growling long ago. That noise wasn't him, but no one else seemed to catch on. He stood up, crouched down, moving slowly towards where Amy sat next to Seth. Jaclyn stared at Amy's feet with wide eyes. She knew.

The purr in the room got louder, coming from under the bed. Amy looked at the two across the room with scared, unsure eyes.

"What is it...?" She whispered.

"...Don't move..." Jaclyn didn't take her eyes off the floor underneath Amy. "...Just lift your feet onto the bed... _Slowly_..." Jaclyn whispered back. Amy did so, pulling her feet to her chest and hugging her knees. The purring turned into a deep growl. Whatever it was, it knew something was going on.

Jaclyn lowered herself slowly to her knees, crouching down at ground-level to see under the bed from her position across the room. Mac stayed at her side, watching.

To Amy's surprise Jaclyn slowly held her hand out, snapping her fingers softly and making kissing noises with her mouth, as if she were calling an animal to her. Mac stayed still as stone.

From under the bed, a tiny creature came hesitantly out. It walked towards Jaclyn's outstretched hand, tripping and bounding like an uncoordinated kitten, tripping over claws too big for it. It's eyes were huge, yellow, staring into Jaclyn's unblinking. It looked like an inside-out kitten, innocent yet disgusting. Jaclyn didn't even seem to notice it's gaping jaws, teeth so big and sharp they couldn't fit in it's mouth.

Jaclyn spoke to it softly, coaxing it to come out further. Why Amy did not know. The cat instinctively waddled awkwardly to her, and sniffed her hand.

"Mac, bed," Jaclyn whispered to her dog, who trotted slowly around the mutated cat to the bed, and looked under it. After clearing the area, he stayed in between the cat and the bed so it couldn't run away.

Jaclyn proved she is full of surprises.

"Amy, get the door," Amy looked to the door. It was closed.

"You want me to _open_ it?"

"Do it!" Jaclyn whispered. The cat was now sitting next to her, allowing Jaclyn to pet it's head, purring so loudly it sounded like it was growling. Amy got up and opened the door carefully.

With her free hand, Jaclyn reached behind her for her field hockey stick. Slowly she stood up, raised the stick back like a golf club and swung.

The first "thunk" cut off the cat's incessant purring; the second let everyone know it had splattered into the wall across from the door. Amy slammed the door shut. The look she gave Jaclyn demanded an explanation, unable to put her shock into words.

"What? You want that thing hanging around us? Just think of all the monsters it would attract! Regardless, I would never trust anything from this town, no matter how disgustingly cute it is," Jaclyn looked at the hand she had pet the cat with an gave it a repulsed grumble. "I can't believe I touched it..." She wiped her hand on her skirt.

"...That was pretty fucked up..." Came a deep groan from the bed. Seth had his head turned to the side, looking at Amy and Jaclyn with an expressionless face. He grinned, closing his eyes. "...but funny nonetheless..."

Amy ran back over to the bed and hugged Seth. Jaclyn sighed, sitting back down on the boxes in the corner. Mac joined her, sitting so he was leaning against her legs, begging for attention. She pet his head.

After receiving his praise, Mac stood back up and trotted proudly to the bed. He laid down and crawled under the bed, a tight squeeze for a dog his size. When he emerged there was something in his mouth, a book. Amy held her hand out, expecting him to hand it over. He jerked his head away from her hand and carried it to Jaclyn. She took it from his mouth and he wagged his tail, expecting praise. He barked once, demanding she pet him. Jaclyn pat his head with one hand, and examined the book with the other.

"Hey, guys, there's something written in this," She flipped open the pages and began to read aloud. "Everyone thinks I'm crazy. Nobody even talks to me anymore, they think I'm too weird. Today Miranda told me to go to school late. When I got there everyone was dead. There was still something there, so I hid. Then I found Seth, or rather, he found me. Miranda tried to kill him, she said he was too dangerous..." Jaclyn furrowed her brow as she read, but didn't look up. Amy exchanged glances with Seth. "...They all say he needs to die, if he did the demon can't get her way. But I know better. If he dies, the demon will just keep searching, her monsters will keep killing... But they are ghosts, they can't learn, they only know what they knew when they died, that she is after than man... That blonde-haired girl, she killed him... She just wants her revenge..."

There was a pause as she turned the page. At this point even Mac was listening intently.

"They wont touch her, not until the demon has what she wants. She wants him..." Jaclyn squinted at the page. "Oh, look Seth! There's a picture of you..." Jaclyn seemed almost excited as she held the book out for the others to see.

The picture was sketched at the bottom of the page, a rough drawing of a boy with shaggy black hair and baggy clothes. At his side was a girl with blonde hair. She was holding out her hand to his face, in it was a gun...

Jaclyn pulled the book back and continued reading.

"They won't stop until he is back where he belongs..." She flipped through the pages, but the rest were blank. With a satisfied sigh she closed the book and tossed it behind the pile of boxes she was sitting on. "Well now, that was a little weird. Who here says we leave? Any takers?" Jaclyn looked from Seth to Amy, both were speechless.

"_Holy mother of god!_" Seth yelled, jumping at least five feet off the bed, slamming back into the wall and knocking Amy to the floor.

"What is it!" She asked, frantically getting back to her feet. Seth reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out his cell phone. It was vibrating in his hand. Seth sighed as Jaclyn rolled her eyes. He dropped the phone to the ground, his arm shaking too much, and lay back down. The phone rattled loudly, sliding across the floor.

"Well, answer it!" Jaclyn yelled angrily. Seth shook his head, cringing in pain from moving so suddenly. Jaclyn reached down, picked it up and flipped it open in one swift movement.

"Hello?" She held it to her ear. The room was so silent a pin could have echoed endlessly.

At first no sound came from the receiver. All at once it blared so loud Jaclyn had to hold the phone at arm's length, and still it was loud.

"_The cross! Dear god, stop her with the cross!_" The voices coming through the receiver all screamed in unison, echoing one right after the other, deep groans of men and high pitched screams of women all merged into one horrifying ensemble. As quick as they had came, the voices were cut off, like someone smashing a radio on full blast. Another voice began talking, hushed. Jaclyn pulled the phone back to her ear hesitantly.

"...my dear. You can't win. Nothing can save you now..." The voice was deep for a woman, low and maniacal. "Just bring him here... I'm waiting. If you don't, I'm sure my... _pets_... wouldn't mind at all... See you soon,"

"Wait! Who are you!" Jaclyn screamed into the phone.

"... Let me talk to him."

"No! I asked you a fucking question, now answer!"

"...Hand him the phone..." Seth could see the terrified look in Jaclyn's eyes as she stared at him from across the room.

"What do you want?"

"...Is that you, Lydia? Come back with that pathetic silver attempt to kill me again?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know very well what I am talking about. Go on, just try. You couldn't use it then and you can't use it now." Jaclyn reached for the silver cross around her neck and rubbed it without even realizing what she was doing. "That's it. See? You know what I am talking about... You and that boy... Oh, how foolish you were... If you could go back, would you do it again?"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing... It doesn't really matter anyways. You were like I once was... Blind. I pity you. I will make sure your death is quick-"

"Shut the hell up you bitch!" Jaclyn yelled again. Something about the woman's evil, smug tone was giving her chills. Amy and Seth watched her and waited.

"...Hand him the phone..." Her voice was louder, stern. Jaclyn could hear it and her ear wasn't even to the receiver. She exchanged glances with Seth. He was sitting up now, and held his hand out. Jaclyn gave him the phone. He slowly lifted it to his ear.

The instant the phone touched his ear Seth tightened up, slamming his other hand to his ear and yelling out in pain. He backed away from Amy, bringing his knees to his chest, phone pressed against one ear and hand against the other. His eyes were shut tight, teeth clenched. Mac howled along with Seth.

"...Go.. away... you... stupid... bitch!" He screamed into the phone, frozen now in his spot on the far side of the bed. "take...! take...!" Seth gasped for breath, trying to spit out a command before suffocating. "the... damn... phone...!" Amy wasn't fast enough. Jaclyn has sprung form the boxes, her hands clenched tightly around the phone in Seth's hand. She wrenched it from his relentless grip, the last thing she heard before she slammed it closed was a woman laughing hysterically...

"_Now it's your tur-_" Snap. The phone shut off.

Seth loosened up a little. When he opened his eyes they only opened halfway, he stared at nothing and shuddered too many times.

Without warning he rolled onto his side and off the bed, landing on his stomach. He pushed himself to his hands and knees and threw up nothing but water. Amy put her hand on his back and rubbed. It didn't seem to calm him down. He continued to choke and gasp. Eventually it slowed down, until he had coughed out all the water from his lungs and fell onto his side.

Jaclyn brushed away his shaggy bangs so she could see if his eyes were open. They were, but he was out cold again. But... His skin, he was so cold...

Jaclyn felt his forehead and cheek, his skin was like ice.

Together she and Amy lifted his frozen and shaking body back onto the bed. They tried to talk to him, but he didn't respond.

Suddenly Jaclyn jumped, dropping the phone. It vibrated across the floor once more. She reached down and flipped open the phone, slamming it to her ear.

"_Leave us alone!_" Jaclyn screamed at the top of her lungs, near tears.

"...Who is this...? I'm sorry, I have the wrong number..."

"...What...? No, wait!" But it was too late. The man hung up. "_Dammit!_" Jaclyn closed the phone and slid it back into Seth's pocket. The room was eerily quiet.

"...What should we do now...?" Amy's soft voice broke the silence. Jaclyn did not have an answer.


	13. Revenge of the Nine Lives

Reign of Blood

Chapter Thirteen

Revenge of the Nine Lives

Amy didn't remember falling asleep. When she woke up, she was sitting up, slumped over and leaning on Seth's chest. He hadn't waken up yet.

She turned to Jaclyn. She was gone. So was her dog.

A loud nose made Amy jump. Scratching... Something was clawing at the door.

_Oh god... It's those damn cats..._

But a familiar bark pushed her to her feet. She ran for the door and swung it open. There stood Mac, panting and bloody. He ducked down like an animal expecting a beating, whining.

"What is it, boy?" Amy squatted down next to him and pet his head. His fur was soaked in blood. Whose it was she didn't want to know.

Mac barked again, nudging her with his nose and turning down the hall, began running. He stopped halfway and turned to see if he was being followed. He barked again.

Amy went back into the room to wake Seth up. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.

"Seth...? Are you awake...?"

"...I was always awake..." He muttered, painfully forcing himself off the bed. Confused, Amy followed him out of the room. There was a dried splatter of blood on the far wall.

It took him a while but after walking down a few halls Seth sped up to a normal paced walk. He rubbed his temples as if shaking off a hangover, and joined Amy in a run to keep up with Mac. The dog was going crazy, barking and whimpering, limping slightly as he bolted towards the stairwell. His claws clinked down the steps before they even reached the door.

"Mac!" Amy yelled. The dog kept running.

Finally they were out of the hospital. The front doors were wide open. Amy and Seth continued to sprint after Mac, who was disappearing into the fog. Every now and then he would stop and turn his head around to make sure they were close behind, then bolt off again. His game was getting tiresome.

"This dog better know what he's doing..." Seth muttered in between hoarse breaths. "If this is Jaclyn's idea of a joke..."

The dog turned a few corners, leading the two further and further into the city, getting them more and more lost. Amy tried to identify some of the buildings, any of the buildings. They were all unmarked, run-down and dilapidated. The dog was running towards a particularly run-down building directly in front of them across the street. It was large and only one story, with almost no windows at all. He ran right in the front door, squeezing through the crack.

Seth pushed open the door and peeked through. The room was entirely empty, except for a desk at the far corner. Mac was standing over something sprawled out in the middle of the room.

"Jaclyn!" Amy yelled, running over to her. Seth followed her lead, and went over to inspect the damage done to their friend.

"...What... the fuck? ...I thought you guys would never show up..." She forced a weak smile, relieved now that she wasn't alone and her dog had come back safely. Her left shin guard was soaked in blood, a little of it dripping onto the floor.

"What happened?" Amy asked, a look of concern in her eyes.

"...I dont know... It was just a good thing I have my shin guards on... There was a whole bunch of things... Mac chased them off... right, Mac?" She reached her hand up to pet her dog, but he snapped at it, growling softly. "Ow! What the hell, Mac?" Just then he started backing away, head down, teeth barred. "Mac, whats wrong?" He wasn't responding to her words. He shook his head violently, sending a shudder down his body.

Jaclyn sat up and pulled herself over to Mac. He was calm now, and let her pet him, his tail in between his legs but wagging slightly. He was shaking a little, hardly noticable. But Jaclyn noticed it.

The front door creaked open even more, casting a ray of dim light onto them front outside. A shadow moved towards them

"Aw, hell. That damn thing again..." Jaclyn muttered as a tiny cat pranced into the room. "Must of followed you guys..." Behind the cat, however, another shadow emerged. This one was huge, a cat just like the kitten pouncing around the room. Only this one had long since grown into it's huge claws and teeth, and judging from the wet blood covering the white surfaces, knew how to use them...

The mother cat hissed, and obediently the kitten stumbled back over to it, the tiny thing hiding behind it's mother's massive body.

"You just had to go and hit that thing like a golf ball, didn't you? Way to go, score one for Jaclyn," Seth said cynically. The others were too occupied staring into the huge creatures yellow eyes to respond to his remark. Mac growled loudly, a clap of thunder drowning out the cat's hissing.

Mac and the mother cat were both crouched down, facing one another. The cat pounced high into the air, and Mac accepted the invitation, lunging at it. Both dog and cat colliding in mid-air, not even waiting to hit the ground before flesh was torn, teeth sinking into necks and claws slashing.

Mac had a huge chunk of the cat's neck in his teeth, and was ripping relentlessly. The cat fought back, whipping with an abnormally long tail and going for the dog's chest with it's claws. Amy, Seth and Jaclyn watched the brawl in horror, the kitten rolled around on the floor.

Finally it was over, Mac dropped the cat's limp body to the floor and stood over it triumphantly.

"Good boy, Mac!" Jaclyn yelled to her friend, who began to wag his tail. Suddenly the cat jolted back to it's feet, teeth sinking into Mac's chest. Mac let out a pain-filled howl that sparked tears in Jaclyn's eyes.

The dog, now wounded, continued it's bloody fight against it's enemy. The battle seemed to drag on, neither side backing down. Jaclyn had had enough.

She struggled to stand up, but did it quickly, limping, hopping; just rushing over to where her friend battled alone. Her stick was raised again.

"Jaclyn! what are you doing?" The words went right over her head. She only had one thing on her mind. That damned cat was going down.

Mac held the cat tightly in it's jaws, fighting to hold it steady for his master. With one swift swing the cat was knocked senseless, sent rolling across the floor to be stopped by the far wall. Jaclyn raced after it, stick held high above her head.

She brought the stick down into the mother cat over and over again, each time she shrieked in agony. Even Mac could only stand back and watch as she smashed the cat's head in, killing it for the ninth and final time. When she finally slumped over, letting the wall catch her, there was nothing left of the cat but what could only be described as road kill. Smashed, splattered road kill.

She turned to her dog, ready to give him praise, but stopped on sight of him. There he stood, crouched in the middle of the room, standing as stiff as a board. He went rigid, his muscles spasming and shaking.

"...Mac...? What is it, boy...?" Jaclyn stared at him with terror in her eyes. His bloody fur was soaked through with red Jaclyn followed the dripping crimson to a small, dark puddle beneath him. Each drop of blood cast a ripple through it.

Suddenly the ripples stopped. The small pool under him was dark, quiet, not a single ripple disturbed it's motionless surface. Mac lunged towards where Amy and Seth stood across the room. Amy's screams were joined by Jaclyn's as she yelled for her dog to stop, begging him to leave them alone.

Seth fought off the dog as much as he could, kicking it's jaw once seemed to knock it off balance and distract it as Jaclyn raced to them the best she could.

"Mac! No!" She screamed as he shook off the blow, and crouched down for another strike at Seth.

Jaclyn lunged on top of her dog, knocking him to the ground. He did not respond well. He thrashed under her, fighting her until he managed to worm his way out from under her. She stood in between him and the others, stick ready to reluctantly smash him like the cat.

Jaclyn talked to him. He ignored every word, not even knowing who she was. He growled at her like she was the cat he had fought, his bloody teeth barred and muscles ready to lunge at her.

She screamed at him, tears now streaming down her face. He didn't hear. Suddenly he jerked for her legs, teeth sinking into her wounded one, through the shin guard and into her flesh. Seth and Amy backed away, unsure of what they could do. Mac had lost it.

Jaclyn screamed again, this time from pain, and kicked him away with her good leg. He snarled at her, waiting for the next opportune moment to attack.

She had but one option left, and she knew it. Raising her stick above her head, she tried whispering to her old friend one more time through the tears. He was deaf to reason.

She brought the stick down as hard as her heart would let her, hitting him right in between the eyes. There was a loud crack, and he crumpled to the floor, thrashing, snarling, and howling. She brought the stick back up, ready to put him out of his misery. One, two, three... The room was silent, all except for the bitter tears of Jaclyn.

She dropped her stick to the ground with a loud clash and fell to her knees next to her friend, crying.

With only mere seconds to mourn, a soft "meow" made her turn her head to see the kitten. Without any warning at all she clenched her stick in her hands, rose to her feet and hobbled over to where it sat clumsily on the ground, batting at it's tail. As she walked she raised her stick.

"_This is all your fault!_" She screamed, whacking the kitten once more. It slammed into the wall, but this time Jaclyn wouldn't let it get away. Once, two, three... She swung the stick into again and again, each time crushing bones and ignoring it's cries. She didn't stop, not even when all that was left of it was a pool of flesh and bloody bones on the floor. Someone put their hands on her shoulders gently. It was Seth.

He hugged her from behind, and Jaclyn calmed down, loosening her grip on the stick. Seth helped her walk back to where Amy stood, guiding her around the bloody remains of her dog, trying to not let her see it again. The three of them walked through a door.

It wasn't until it slammed closed behind them that Seth realized it was the wrong door. The three of them were left in pitch black, cluttered together. Seth let go of Jaclyn, who made no attempt to locate him in the dark. Amy, on the other hand, held on for dear life.

"Lighten up, Amy, I'm just gunna look for a light switch..." Amy loosened her grip on his arm, but stayed close as he found the wall behind them and ran his hands across it, feeling for a switch.

"...Seth..." Amy whispered, feeling uncomfortable. The room was hot and humid, like the breath of a dragon. Amy didn't like it at all.

"What?" Seth sounded annoyed, but continued searching the wall vigorously with his hands. He disregarded the loud rumble that filled every corner of the room, echoing off the hard walls and getting louder by the second, like a chainsaw grinding into a distant tree. "Found it!" He called triumphantly into the blackness. Suddenly a loud, deafening buzzing noise filled the room as a single hanging lamp blared with white light. The huge room was illuminated, every wall now visible.

But the walls weren't walls. They were cages, each one stacked on top of the next, all the way to the ceiling and surrounding them on every wall. Within every cage was a single monster, beckoned to life by the sudden outburst of noise and light. The hushed rumble turned into an all-out earthquake of gurgling, disgusting hisses and barks and howls. Jaclyn was frozen, eyes wide from her spot in the center of the room. On all sides of her the creatures screamed, calling to her, condemning her. Her tears were silent against the screaming inferno in which she was ensnared.

As quickly as the lights came on and the buzzing sounded, an even more terrifying noise filed the room. The sound of metal, the sound of machines at work, gears turning. The door of each cage simultaneously began to creak open, the monsters realized this and tried to push it open the rest of the way, sticking their noses through the small crack that was slowly getting larger.

"Shit! Seth, what did you do!" Amy screamed.

"I dont know! I hit that button on the wall! I thought it was only for the lights!" He backed up, human nature when a terrifying situation presents itself. He tried the door. It was jammed tight.

He slammed his fist into the same button, hoping it would stop the gears. It didn't.

"...Seth...!" Jaclyn's usually loud voice could barely be heard. "...Hit the button next to it...! It opens that door over there," She pointed to the opposite side of the room, where there was a closed door that opened up into the ceiling like a small garage door. Seth slammed his fist on the button. The door began to lift. It moved faster than the cage doors, as if the gears were newer and less rusted. The door rose up into the ceiling and was silent. "Now press it again, and run," Jaclyn said, fighting to keep her voice steady. With a little hesitation, Seth pressed the button again, grabbing Amy's arm and running.

Jaclyn stayed still. She brought her hand up to her neck, grabbing the silver cross and yanking the chain until it broke. She held onto the chain, dangling it out to the side as Seth ran by.

"I don't know why this thing's so important... _Take it!_" She turned to him. As he ran he grabbed the necklace out of her hand.

"Jaclyn, run!" Amy screamed behind them as Seth pulled her closer and closer to the closing doors. At least half of the smaller monsters were out of the cages now, closing in as they ran by. Jaclyn didn't move.

"This is where I leave you two... Goodbye..." She muttered under her breath. She backed towards the door, trying to cut off all the monsters before they could begin chasing Seth and Amy. She rubbed the end of her bloody stick on her soaked shin guard, waving it in the faces of the creatures. "You want this, don't you?" She taunted, swinging at them as they closed in, now completely attracted to the smell of fresh blood surrounding her.

"_Jaclyn!_" Amy screamed. It was too late. Seth pulled her under the door just as it closed. The dogs could still be heard from inside they were so loud. They were going insane, just like Mac...

Seth didn't hear a scream. Only the dogs. Screaming and crying he pulled Amy with him down the street, trying to get as far away as possible, away form the noise, away from the dogs...

_Jaclyn... Thank you... for sacrificing your friend, your life... for me..._


	14. Lose You Tonight

Reign of Blood

Chapter Fourteen

Lose You Tonight

Seth sat in the hotel lobby, slouched on a bench near the front closed door. Amy had cried herself to sleep by his side, and now lay with her head in his lap, breathing softly. Seth didn't seem to even notice. His eyes were fixed on the far wall, locked on nothing, half-closed. He couldn't sleep. He hadn't slept in forever, and it was beginning to take a toll on him. He couldn't keep his heavy eyes open, but couldn't keep them closed either. He was stuck somewhere in between slumber and being wide-awake.

Seth tried to occupy his exhausted, endless time by examining the necklace Jaclyn had given him. She had said it was important, and he trusted her. He ran his fingers across the shiny silver surface, looking at all sides of it. It shined, reflecting light from the dim area, a small shard of hope in a twisted town.

Seth put the necklace around his own neck, and put the silver cross underneath his shirt.

Amy stirred, her leg twitching. She didn't wake up. Seth wished she would, so they could do something, anything. He needed to get his mind off of Jaclyn by any means necessary. Oh how he wished he had some beer... A lot of it...

But these images... were one thing he couldn't drown away with alcohol.

It felt like there was someone in his head, someone listening to his thoughts... Seth sighed deeply, trying to shake off his paranoia. Like a record her voice played over and over again, an echo in his mind he couldn't get to stop ringing. Every time he thought about it he felt cold, his muscles cramped up and got so tight it hurt, so cold it burned. Often it was hard to breathe.

_You shall meet the same fate you gave me... _ Her voice said to him many times. When she spoke it felt like icy fingers wrapping around his neck...

Seth shuddered, the thought of her cold voice sending chills from the back of his neck all the way down to his feet.

Then his eyes closed. But instead of seeing the back of his eyelids, a dark blue image flooded into his eyes. He looked around, but he was lost in the nothingness. He felt something pulling him down, further and further in the abyss, the image got darker and darker. It was then he realized he wasn't breathing.

He tried to take in a breath of air, but it was as if his lungs stopped working. Down and down he went, the darkness closing in around him...

There was tremendous pressure on his body as he sunk, so much it hurt his insides, it was like being crushed slowly to death. Seth tried flailed his arms in a sad attempt to resurface.

Finally all he could see was black.

All he could hear was a woman screaming, her loud cries becoming distant sobs, fading away.

Seth opened his eyes.

There he was, back in the hotel. He was on his knees on the floor, Amy in between his legs laying on her back. She was crying, unable to scream anymore with his hands wrapped so tightly around her neck. Her eyes were wide and stared up at his with sheer terror.

Seth let go of her neck and stood up, apologizing over and over as he offered a hand to help her up. Amy did not take it, but scrambled away, crawling backwards to put as much room in between them as possible. She was gasping for air, her usually neat perfectly done hair was completely ruined and messy from her head being forced on the floor. Her makeup had smeared down her face from crying so much.

"Amy, I... I'm sorry..." Seth tried to explain himself but couldn't. Even he didn't know what he was doing at the time, let alone why he was doing it.

Amy pushed herself up, shaking and in a daze. The tears came pouring once more as she turned around and bolted down a hallway, disappearing into the darkness. Seth tried to run after her, but his muscles failed him. After nearly two steps they froze, each one contracting so tightly it rendered him immobile on the floor in a tight ball. He cursed loudly, and tried to bring Amy back with his voice, calling to her. He got no answer. He couldn't even hear her distant sobs anymore. She was gone, and he was on the floor, unable to move at all. It felt like the darkness was settling in all around him once more, holding him down, sucking the very breath from his lungs.

Even with such panic and pain flowing through his veins all he could think about was getting back to Amy, telling her he didn't mean to hurt her, ever...

Amy couldn't believe what had just happened. As she ran blindly down the hallway, it just kept replaying in her mind, like a broken record.

She had woken up when she felt herself hit the ground hard. Within the second she opened her eyes Seth was on top of her, god knows what he was trying to do.

All she remembered was that she couldn't breathe... His cold hands wrapped around her neck so tight, the weight of his body holding her down...

She ran faster. Down hallways, up stairs, she had no clue where her legs were taking her. She burst into a room, the door hitting the wall and slamming closed behind her. Finally she stopped, unable to run a second longer, and collapsed on the ground, exhausted, crying.

"...What's wrong...?" Came an innocent voice, echoing through the empty room. Amy froze. It took her a few seconds of dizziness to realize she had stopped breathing. Slowly she lifted her head and took in the sight around her.

The room was bright, unlike anything Amy had come across in this town. There was a huge window at the far side of the room, drapes pulled back to let in the stark white rays of sun. The entire room was white, pure; the walls, the empty floor, the white laced bed. But as Amy looked around she saw no one.

"_He did this, didn't he!_" Suddenly the voice hissed, losing it's sense of innocence and being swallowed up by a sea of hatred. "_That man! He shall pay! I shall see to it myself he stays at the very depths at which I was imprisoned... I know it's him... I know it's him... I know..._" The voice began to fade away into the distance. Amy slowly rose to her hands and knees, her arms shaking so much she swayed slightly as her eyes darted around for the source of the voice. "_...it's him... I know it's him... I know it's..._"

"Who are you!" Amy managed to squeak out, her pinched voice reverberating off the white walls. She slowly crept backwards, towards the door she had come from. "What do you want!" She nearly screamed the words, the fear making her lose control of her vocal cords. There was no answer.

Amy staggered to her feet and wrenched at the doorknob. It wouldn't turn. She pounded her fists on the door, sliding down on her trembling legs until she was kneeling, hands still clenched around the doorknob. She cried, unable to get out of her nightmare. Her face was buried in her arms, eyes shut tight.

"You... You have a keen sense within you, I can tell..." Amy bolted around. When she opened her eyes again, the room was dark, the walls painted unevenly with dark red and brown stains. The window was so cloudy it blocked out any light that may have been on the other side. The curtains were ripped and dripping. There was a chair in the middle of the floor that hadn't been there before. A man sat in it, facing her, draped in shadows. "I really wish you wouldn't cry so much... You're not helpless."

Amy stared at the shadow of the man in the chair. "...James...?"

"Wrong."

"..._Seth?_" The man stood up, no emotions evident on his hidden face or body posture. When he emerged from the darkness he had a smirk on his face. "...No... Who are you...?" Amy said, fear coursing through her body, tears streaming down her face. She had stopped whimpering, a little relieved to find someone living. But that smile on his face... It wasn't friendly.

"Name's Richard... How did such a beautiful, innocent little girl end up here, all alone?" He asked, the crooked grin never leaving his dark face. When he lowered his head to meet her gaze, a wave of reddish brown hair fell like a curtain over his eyes. Amy didn't know how to respond to such a question. She was terrified out of her wits, and he was casual, as if they weren't surrounded by a town full of flesh-eating monsters. She decided not to respond. "...Shy, are we? Well at least tell me your name." He stopped sauntering across the black carpeted floor, staying at the edge of the black shadows, his body hidden.

"...Amy..." She said softly, staring at his face. He let out a deep sigh.

"Amy... What a beautiful name...Beautiful enough, anyways... A name fit for a perky, too-perfect, bitchy cheerleader. Big boobs, nice ass, fake tan... But..." His voice was soft and deep, comforting like two strong arms in an embrace, words that were merely sound, not meaning.

"Don't call me a bitch... I don't know what you're trying to do... but stop it," She found herself blurting out before she could stop herself. The smile never left Richard's face.

"I'm not trying to do anything, honest. I'm here to help you. I know how you feel. Together, we can end it all... all the pain, all the suffering... Stand up," Amy could hear the sound of something metallic clicking. She could just barely see the silhouette of Richard's body, his arms were behind his back. She couldn't tell what his hands were holding. Slowly, obediently, Amy rose to her feet. "Just lead me to it. We can put a stop to this, but you have to help me,"

"No, what are you talking about?" Amy said, face flushed with confusion and fear.

"I'm talking about your role in all this, the reason you found me-"

"Stop talking like that! What are you trying to say?"

"The cross, dammit! Bring me to the cross!"

For an instant Richard's face was full of hate and anger, but his eyes flashed with an invigorating fear. A hollow click followed by a ringing gunshot filled the air, accompanied by the shattering of glass and shrieks of Amy as she hit the floor.


	15. Bloody Lies

Reign of Blood

Chapter Fifteen

Bloody Lies

Richard fell foreword into the darkness that shrouded the carpet as the window shattered. He was engulfed in black, Amy scrambled backwards against the door and screamed, her arms in front of her face to shield herself from whatever had broken through the window.

An earsplitting howl filled the emptiness of the room, followed by another gunshot. The creature snarled in pain. Another gunshot. Amy had opened her eyes to see the blinding flash, the howling cry as the beast took its last breath. The image of the split second the room was lit up by the gun stuck in her head. Richard lay on his stomach, his arms awkwardly wrenched around behind his back. In his hands was a gun. He shot backwards, into the monster without even turning his head.

Calmly and slowly he stood back up without using his hands, his smile gone, a look of tight pain on his face. The gun dropped to the floor behind him.

Amy stopped screaming and watched him with wide eyes. "...How did you do that...?" She mustered up the courage to ask. As if he was stabbed in the side, he quickly slumped over to the right side, down onto one knee.

"...Please... Come here..." He said. No smooth voice, no mind games, no sweet talk. Concise and to the point. There are three things that can take even a person with an admirable personality and turn them into crumbling stone. Fear, helplessness, and pain.

Amy stumbled cautiously to him. She stopped above the dark lump on the floor she could barely make out as a body, and kneeled next to him.

"My arms..." Was all he could get out. He seemed to be having trouble getting a breath from his awkward position on the floor. Amy reached out a hesitant hand above him, unsure of where exactly his arms were in the dark. She placed her hand on his back and he winced, making her pull back and jump herself. He apologized, squirming slightly as if he were trying to get comfy to sleep.

Amy put her hand on his back again, and felt until she found his arms. She followed them down to his wrists where she felt something cold, metal.

"Why are you handcuffed?" Amy asked, feeling her voice returning. Richard paused, simply telling her to get them off. All of his suave was gone, but he still kept his firm tone. Amy looked around the dark room, seeing nothing but hoping to get an idea. She got nothing.

Finally she made a decision. "You, you're going to stay in those handcuffs. Now tell me, why was the door locked? How do you expect us to get out of here?"

Richard sighed, but it was more of a pant; quick, harsh, worn-out. He didn't even try to look at her as he responded. "...I don't know. That door's been locked. When they put me here I don't think they wanted me to leave, that door can only be opened from the outside," He immediately regretted telling her so much.

"What? Who put you here? Why did they handcuff you?" Amy looked down at his pathetic state, unsure of what to think. "...What aren't you telling me?" Richard didn't move. "Answer me!"

Slowly Richard brought his knees under him, using them to balance himself as he drunkenly fumbled and tried to stand up. Amy reached for the gun and jumped backwards, out of reach in case he was bluffing. She pointed the gun at him, clutching it in both hands, but he continued to push himself up and stagger towards her. Without thinking, she brought her knee up, aiming for his stomach to knock the wind out of him. She hadn't realized how tall he was.

Her knee came up short, but made contact, a direct hit. Richard yelled out in pain and fell to his knees where he lay on the floor in the fetal position, rocking and swaying slowly, cursing at Amy.

"Answer me!" She repeated, kneeling by his side and holding the gun against his temple. He stopped moving, his teeth clenched and eyes shut tight in pain. But he could tell when a gun was at his face without needing to see it.

"...Fine..." He spat at her, displeased that she had the upper hand. "...They were going to take us to the jail beneath that museum..."

"'Us'?" Amy asked in surprise.

"Did I say 'us'? I mean to say 'me'..." He sounded cynical, but kept talking before Amy could call his bluff. "Anyways... There was a... problem at the jail... They had to bring me here for a while..."

"Who?"

"The police..."

"...What did you do...?" Amy was hesitant to ask, her hands clenched around the gun becoming sweaty and shaking.

"...I uh..." Richard spoke softly, watching her out of the corner of his eye. He let out a slight chuckle through his pain. "Well, apparently, I got caught." Amy stood back up, gun held steady at his head. Richard laughed, a high-pitch, throaty chortle, and slowly staggered to his feet, slouched foreword and legs closed tight to try and block out the pain. "So are you gunna just point that thing at me all day, or at least until something else comes and eats us, or are you gunna let me go?"

"So where are the cops?" Amy said, backing up a little further.

"What cops?" Richard stopped laughing, giving her a reassuring smile.

"I told you not to do that! Where are the cops? The cops who caught you, the cops who were staying here to watch you!"

"Oh, _those_ cops." Richard rolled his eyes. He would have slapped his forehead in an overdramatic gesture of stupidity but his hands were bound. "Well, uhh..." His eyes wandered to the far bedroom door, a dark corner of the room. Amy's head followed, eyes straining to see through the black. A ruffle of loose clothes made her head spin back towards Richard to see him rushing towards her, head lowered at waist-level.

Amy fired once, but Richard kept coming. She missed. In a second his shoulder slammed into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. He fell on top of her, the gun discharging as it crashed to the ground. Amy choked, gasping for breath as she struggled to get out from under him and get to the gun. He casually sat up, and Amy scrambled across the floor, feeling blindly for her only defense. She clasped her hands tight around the barrel of the gun, fumbling until the right end was pointed at Richard.

Panting, she screamed at him. "What the hell are you doing!"

"What?" He looked slightly annoyed with her. Suddenly he pinched his lips together, thinking. As if struck by an idea his eyes locked back on her, wide and surprised. "Oh! Right, sorry about that." Richard stood up again, shaking his head slowly back and forth. "Honestly, I dont know what came over me. I mean, I'm not usually like this, really." He chuckled again, "Then again, I'm not usually given a knee to the groin a lot, either. An eye for an eye, as they say. But I couldn't necessarily knock you in the balls, for obvious reasons you may have notic-" Richard's smug words were cut off by the sound of metal to his skull as Amy swiped the butt of the gun across his temple. His entire body followed his head to the ground in one swift motion.

Amy stood above his fallen, motionless body, shaking. Richard squirmed slightly; at least he was still alive. After watching him on the floor, cringing and twitching from the shock and pain, Amy was a little relieved to see him look up at her. His eyes were glazed and stared through her, and one was closed more than the other. Blood seeped out of his temple and down the side of his face. "...What the fuck...?" He said, blood spraying onto his shirt from the wound leaking a dark stream of crimson into his mouth.

Slowly, Amy walked backwards, towards the far corner room Richard had glanced at. His eyes watched her stumble and almost trip her legs were trembling so much. Finally she made it to the bedroom door, Richard still incapacitated on the floor. She pushed it open slowly. As the door swung lazily open, a small gust of hot, sticky air seeped out, choking Amy with the stench of death.

"No, please. Don't look in there." Richard said in the most monotone, sarcastic voice Amy had ever heard. Annoyed, scared and angered, she reached for the light switch and flipped it. The dim light on the ceiling came flickering on, and with it, an image that made Amy scream, falling backwards and forcing herself to look away. Richard smirked, listening to her whimpers from across the room.

"...Why don't people listen to me...? First the cops... now you..."


	16. For What its Worth

Reign of Blood

Chapter Sixteen

For What It's Worth

Amy screamed, backing away from the open door. Light spilled onto the floor, illuminating the dark room. Beneath the musty light was three bodies; each male, each wearing a blue police uniform, each dead.

The white carpet had reached its saturation point long ago, unable to soak up all the watery crimson most of the blood sat on top of the floor like a deep sea of red. Amy would rather die than be forced to tread over those waters for fear of being engulfed by the now-cold blood. Just the mere thought sent wet chills up her spine, made her feel lightheaded.

"What's wrong, 'o brave one? Feeling dizzy? Don't pass out on me, now, I don't know what I'd do." Richard noticed Amy's sudden paleness, her swaying body. Suddenly Amy collapsed in the corner and heaved, throwing up nothing but sticky bile. This only widened the grin on Richard's face. He chuckled to himself.

"What, you think this is funny!" Amy screamed at him, gun still clutched in her hand for security. Richard said nothing, just smiled. "You think killing these people is _funny_!" Amy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she spoke, but kept the hand there in front of her, trying her hardest to give her more leeway, to put something else between them and the short distance across the room. Richard was still sprawled on the floor, his own blood being soaked up by the carpet beneath him. He couldn't wipe the blood away even if he wanted, not that he would anyway.

"They started it..." He muttered like a child about to be put in time-out for starting a fight.

"Well I'm sure you deserved it," This response received a cynical, hurtful laugh, not at all like his playful laughs before; this one telling her with a meaningless sound just how wrong she was. Amy didn't buy it.

"You think you have the right to come in here and accuse me, tell _me_ what _I _deserve! That is a job only for God. You know nothing," Richard spat blood again, the wound not dripping as much but trickling down his face. His words left splatters of red on the white carpet in front of his head. "You got a lotta nerve, girl. And not the attractive, witty kind of nerve, either," With that Amy stood up, using the wall for support.

"You killed these three men! You admitted it!"

"I admit to nothing."

"So you deny killing these cops?" Amy hiked a thumb in the direction of the bedroom. Her sheer anger was beginning to drown out her nausea.

"No, I deny and admit nothing. You are not to judge."

"This coming from you. I wont forget you called me a bitch," Amy snarled at him. She had never lost her temper with Seth, and he was exhaustingly aggravating. Without a reason or a justified purpose as to why she could get so mad at this man she had never met before, Amy was a little confused. He was a convict, and a murderer. But no matter how much Seth had yelled at her in the past, she had never acted like this... What was it in this man that just pushed her over the edge? Maybe being in this hellhole for so long was starting to take a toll on her sanity...

Lost in her thoughts Amy didn't even see Richard struggle to his feet. "Well, it's been fun, really. Haven't had this much brutal excitement since those damn cops came at me with the knives and batons. See ya," Richard said without looking at her as he staggered as straight as he could to the broken window.

"Wait!" Amy said, a reflex. Richard stopped walking. "...They... Came at you with knives...?"

"Thats right. I told you they started it. I just finished it. Although, once you think about it, its kinda sad... One handcuffed, outnumbered man taking on three armed cops... and winning... Not to say it didn't come at a price," Richard sighed, letting out a hoarse, deep breath, and continued towards the window.

"...What happened...?" Amy dared to ask. It was then she realized she had lowered her gun, and he was getting closer. Damn, he was good.

"...I'd rather not talk about it..." He said. Amy tried to look at his face, but, as usual, it was concealed by a thick layer of his silky reddish-brown hair. In the dim light she could see that it was matted together with blood, some dry, some still shiny and wet from the wound on his temple she had given him.

Richard turned his head to face the window, his body angled facing Amy. It was then she heard it, too. Coming from the balcony was the soft sound of a tongue clicking rapidly. Amy tightened her grip on the handle of the gun.

Richard turned back to face her. Neither moved. The sound was getting louder, every now and then the clicking alternated with the sound of sniffing, hissing, and a deep throaty growl. Surely it had caught their scent long ago, and now merely waited until insanity drove them to do something stupid.

He mouthed the words 'don't move' but Amy was way ahead of him, frozen with fear. She couldn't move if she wanted. Whatever was outside was either scratching on the side of the building from the ground floor or trying to climb up to the third.

Amy was trembling again, the image of the dead cops, the smell of their rotting, open flesh still lingering in the room. Perhaps it was that the monster smelled. Maybe it was attracting more by the second. Without being asked Amy reached back to the door and, without looking in the room, grabbed the knob and pulled the door shut tight, slowly.

When Amy looked back the look on Richard's face was not reassuring at all. His eyes were fixed on the balcony, a terrified look on his face that didn't feel right, something didn't feel right. Amy heard it before she laid eyes on it.

The cracking and crunching of glass underfoot let Amy know the monster was on the balcony, mere yards away from where Richard stood. He was right in front of it, scared stiff, too afraid and petrified to know what to do. The footsteps got closer, breaking the shards of glass with each step until it sauntered into the room.

Like the other monster Richard had gunned down, this one looked vaguely like a wolf with a giant hump on his back, his stomach arched way up and his fur the color of dried blood. He had a spiny back and protruding shoulder blades, his body covered in cuts and scars and blood and teeth marks. His left eye had been ripped out. An empty socked watched Richard before him, tall and striped with his black and white prison jumpsuit. He definitely stood out, and the smell of blood was fresh and soaked onto him, his clothes, his hair.

Finally he began to assess the dangerous situation and backed up as slow as the creature ambled foreword. "Amy... Now would be a good time to use that..." He muttered softly, almost singing with nervousness. The wolf growled louder, silencing him. In a split second the beast was in the air, teeth barred and claws outstretched to slash it's prey wide open. Gunshots filled the air like fireworks, one right after the other. The wolf came down hard onto Richard, knocking him clear off his feet, the monster's teeth sinking into Richard's shoulder.

Richard let out a scream of pain, and Amy fired again into the rabid beast. It let go of his shoulder, lifted its head and snarled, blood pouring out of it's mouth like a hose. It stumbled off of Richard, and he lay there in silent pain as the wolf slammed itself into the far wall, trying to fight the barrage of bullets. The gun clicked to show it was empty. Amy didn't know what to do. The monster still wasn't dead, and her only gun was out of ammo.

The dog roared so loud the room shook slightly, his deep growls sent in pulsating pounds in their chests. He fell over to the floor and thrashed, blood splattering everywhere from countless holes in his hide. After what seemed like long minutes, his death finally came. He twitched a few last times in one last effort to get back up and finish his kill. His last breath came as one loud, deep, growling sigh. Silence. utter silence, like right after a tornado. An almost deafening hush fell over the room as neither Amy nor Richard breathed.

Unable to speak, Amy rushed over to Richard and fell down to her knees at his side. A near-death situation can bring anyone closer, even a high school girl and a grown man accused of murder. Scratch that, Amy didn't know what he was accused of, or found guilty for that matter. But he did kill three cops. And that was enough.

Richard wasn't moving. At all. He lay perfectly still, like a body in rigor mortus. He was pale from blood loss, the wound deep in his shoulder where the teeth had been ripped out of. Amy poked his chest with the barrel of the gun, not wanting to touch a dead body with bare hands.

Richard winced. He was alive. He looked up at her though his curtain of red hair. His face and hair and clothes were drenched now from the wolf bleeding on top of him. Still Amy had not once looked into his eyes. She knew they were there, somewhere behind all that hair, but he had never once looked at her without hiding them.

"...Richard...?" Amy said. He was breathing deeply and slowly, but that was just about it. She poked him again with the gun, but this time he didn't jump. She slowly brought her hand to his face, trying to find an excuse to look at his eyes he had done such a good job of hiding. She gently brushed his bangs away from his bloody face.

Two yellowish eyes, bloodshot and small, stared up at her. He turned his head and shut them, laying on his side with his back to Amy. As he strived to stand up, Amy backed away to give him room. He stumbled and had to lean on the wall for support. She watched him, not offering to help.

"...What's... wrong with your eyes...?" She whispered, her throat in knots. Richard stared at her, offended and harshly, with his yellow eyes. They made Amy cower away, they seemed to pierce into her, as if he were actually touching her. She continued to back away, trying to get rid of that feeling.

"...Nothing is _wrong_ with my eyes..." He spat at her. He hadn't blinked once yet. Amy quickly looked away from him, down to the dog on the floor that was still bleeding steadily. He walked slowly towards her, trying to hide an obvious limp. The speed at which he got over his sudden defensiveness showed that he was used to such comments about his eyes. "Come on... We need to get out of here..." Richard had given up on trying to get Amy to remove his handcuffs. She had proven her worth. "...They're a few clips on the counter..." Amy gave him a confused look. "Clips. You know, the thing you put in the gun to make it kill things?" He rolled his yellow eyes and hobbled over to the balcony, crunching in the glass as the wolf did. Amy grabbed the three clips on the counter, staring at them in her hand, marveling at how much heavier they were than she'd expected. It was then she noticed something; a small, silver key, sitting right near the clips. Thinking of only one thing it could be, she pocketed the key and followed him to the balcony, unsure of what else to do. "You might want to reload that gun first," Richard was obviously tired, too tired to play games. His voice was gruff and weak, and he kept having to stop and shake his head a few times to get rid of the dizzy feeling trying to overcome his mind.

Amy, gun in one hand and clips in the other, stared at each with a puzzled glare. Richard sighed, leaning against the wall. "Give me those," He said, slightly annoyed but mostly exhausted. She handed him the gun and the clip behind his back. He released the empty clip already in the gun and reloaded it. "Put those two clips in my pocket," He said. A little hesitant to have to touch him, Amy did as she was told. Richard muttered something obscene under his breath. Amy didn't hear it, nor did she have any desire to.

Richard walked out to the edge of the balcony and looked down. He hadn't given the gun back to Amy and she was too afraid to ask for it. She didn't really want to have to shoot anything again, ever. Richard seemed happy to hold it, even if it meant he had to shoot backwards. He was quite capable of that, anyways.

"...Long way down," He said, peering over the ledge. Down below them was a long fall, followed by an instant death on the hard ground, maybe even a possibility of smashing your skull on the concrete fountain not far away. "I bet I could still push you off with no arms," He said, looking at her like a sibling battling for supremacy, trying to prove that they could do something better.

Amy was silent, unsure of how to interpret this remark. Was it a joke? A threat? She looked him in the eyes, trying to read him, to see what was inside his head. She couldn't see anything past his pale yellow eyes. They were even brighter now that they were outside and his pupils had dilated from the vast, misty-white air flanking them. She saw no emotion in his eyes, despite the playful smile on his face.

"You're a lunatic, insane, you know that? Does that have anything to do with why you were arrested and put under such heavy surveillance?" Amy asked, hoping her question would catch him off-guard like so many of his remarks had to her. His reaction was not what Amy had planned; wide eyes, mouth to hang slightly open, perhaps speechlessness, uncertainty at least. He did none of these. Her rude question seemed to please him, if anything. His grin widened, and he looked up towards the hidden sky, and let out a long sigh.

"...In an insane world... Only a lunatic is truly sane..." Without looking back into her eyes to judge her reaction, he turned away, gazing off the balcony. At first it looked as if he were in a daze, staring off into nothing, lost in the dense fog that entered and clouded one's mind.

"There," Instantly Amy realized he had been seeking an escape route, not a dramatic pose. She slowly walked over to where he stood, not close enough for him to lunge at her, in case he was serious about the pushing her off thing. He nodded in the direction of the drainage pipe that climbed the side of the house. It was completely covered in claw marks, torn open in sections. The side of the wall near the gutter was completely ripped up, too. The wolf must have had a hell of a time climbing up. "We might be able to climb down the way that thing climbed up. He might have made some footholds for us so we wont have to slide down, or... he could have ruined our ladder," Richard spoke to the wind, letting the cold breeze carry his voice around them in circles.

"So now what?" Amy asked.

"Well," Richard clung to that word like a drowning child to a life jacket, letting it roll off his tongue and linger in the air. "I guess it's really up to you... I'd say you have two options... Climb down yourself first, testing our ladder that very well may collapse under the weight of even one of us. Or... You could use that key to unlock my handcuffs and let me go first..."

Amy stared at him bewildered. "How did you know... I found a key?" Richard shrugged, giving her a smug look. He was good. Amy suddenly felt like there was nothing; no secrets, no advantage, no nothing she had over him. He saw through everything she tried to do and could outwit her easily.

But wait. She still had the key, even if he knew she had it. While it might have been safer if he didn't know, she still had one thing on him. His freedom.


	17. Paroxysm

Reign of Blood

Chapter Seventeen

Paroxysm

"You have the upper hand in this situation. Is that what you want to hear?" Richard asked, impatiently awaiting her decision. "You have the choice of what happens next..." Amy stared at the floor, arms shaking, fingers clenched around the small silver key in her pocket. "Or is that what you're afraid of?" Richard chuckled again, finding everything amusing. He didn't seem deterred at all of the fact that his face was bleeding. "You're afraid of screwing up, afraid of being in command. That's why you're a follower-"

"Shutup!" Amy screamed. She looked him in his yellow eyes, not intimidated to gaze into those deep golden pits anymore. His smile widened.

"So what's the verdict, judge?"

"Fine. I'll take off your handcuffs. But," She said forcefully, trying to sound mature, older, attempting to earn his respect through intimidation. "I get to hold the gun. As soon as you climb down, the handcuffs go back on,"

"Well, can they at least be in front of me so I don't have to shoot backwards?"

"...I'll think about it..." Amy walked over to Richard hesitantly. He dropped the gun to the floor and backed away, turning around. Amy snatched the gun up and stuck it in her skirt's waistline like a holster.

"You might want to turn the safety on if you're gunna do that," Richard said over his shoulder, snickering at her. Amy ignored him and unlocked the right handcuff, leaving the left to hang on his wrist. She stuck the key back in her pocket and whipped out the gun, finger rested on the trigger, as Richard brought his hands in front of his and rubbed his wrists.

"Go," Amy said, jerking the gun in the direction of the gutter he was to climb down. He lazily turned his head to look at it, then looked back at Amy.

"What?"

"Climb down the gutter, like you said!" Richard opened his mouth as if to say "aha!" but no words came out. Shaking his head and muttering to himself, he reached the end of the balcony near the side of the building. He squatted down, getting a good look at the flimsy and shredded gutter. He plopped down on his butt, leaning his legs over the side where the wolf had removed the railing and thrown it somewhere. He kicked the gutter a few times, testing it's durability.

He turned back to Amy. "Why can't I just jump?"

Amy was dumbfounded by his outlandish question. They were three storied up, that's why. She furrowed her brows at him, but decided it best not to insult him now that he was unhandcuffed. "Go for it," She shrugged, unsure of what to expect next.

He didn't even think twice about it. In one swift motion he slid off the balcony, dangling three stories in the air, holding on to the balcony floor with both hands. Amy gasped, she couldn't help it. He suddenly let go. Amy ran to the edge on instinct to see if he would splatter.

"Hey! There's another balcony under this one!" He said, laughing. Amy, down on her hands and knees, looked under the balcony she was perched on. Sure enough, one story below her, Richard stood looking up at her smiling. "Come on, I'll catch you!" He yelled up to her, teetering, a little disoriented. The blood on his face was still fresh, turning the left side of his face bright red as he stared up at her.

"No!" She yelled back, knowing she had no other options but to jump after him. She stuck the gun back in the waistline of her skirt, readying herself to hang off the edge as Richard had done. She turned her body and swung, her fingers straining to stay clinging to the balcony floor. Beneath her she heard Richard whistle. Immediately she blushed.

"You better not be looking up my skirt, you perv!" Richard laughed even harder. She suddenly felt his arms wrap around the bend of her knee, pulling her down with just enough force to get her fingers to lose their grip. She fell foreword, but he never let go of her legs. She ended up falling draped over his shoulder, her hips digging into his sharp shoulder bones. Her face ended up somewhere near his lower back. "Put me down!" Richard let her drop roughly to the floor. She stumbled backwards, nearly falling over the railings and plummeting two stories down. Richard grabbed her arms and pulled her into his chest. Amy instantly pushed away, walking around to the other side of him, fumbling to pull the gun out and point it at him.

"Handcuffs. Back on. Now," She said, trying to look tough. Any one looks tough from the wrong end of a gun.

"Ok, ok..." Richard held both of his arms in front of him, straight out towards her. Cautiously, Amy used her one free hand to put the cuff back on his right wrist, gun still pointed at him just in case. "Still don't trust me, I see." He said, nodding at the handcuffs.

"I let you wear them in the front. Isn't that enough?" Richard shrugged.

"I guess after a while ya get used to it..."

"What? The handcuffs?"

"No. The weird looks, people avoiding you, not wanting to get close, not trusting you... Expecting you to do something bad any second now... Feeling they need to restrain you, have the upper hand, for that reason alone... Fear," He said, sighing. His tone wasn't complaining, but it seemed to take the smile from his face.

"Nice speech, but the handcuffs stay," Amy snapped at him.

He just closed his eyes gently. "As you wish," Amy walked over to the glass sliding door and peered inside. All of their yelling outside seemed to reverberate in the silence, and if anything was in the room and heard them, she wanted to know it was there before just blindly walking in. "Well done," Richard said, smiling at her again. She turned to him with a puzzled look.

"For what?"

"For not being a stupid asshole and walking into a room where you have no idea what's inside. But mostly for keeping me on a chain, that's something even the cops couldn't handle," He brought both hands up to his chin and cracked his neck to the right, then the left. "But also for trusting me behind you..."

"Knock it off,"

"What? I thought we were going down to the first floor, ya know, jump down one more floor? Unless you _wanted_ me behind you-"

"No, I did not,"

"So inside it is. Say, you gunna give me back that gun yet?" Amy looked at the gun in her hands and thought for a while.

"No. But you can go in first," She stepped aside and motioned for him to go ahead and open the door. Richard didn't skip a beat. He walked to the door and tried to pry it open with both hands. It was locked.

"S'no good." He said, backing up slightly and shrugging. He reached one hand into his pocket, pulling the other down to his waist with it, and removed a pack of cigarettes. He placed one in between his lips and pocketed the rest. "You got a light?" Amy shook her head, raising a befuddled eyebrow at him. As usual, he took no notice of the weird looks received from her. "Fuck it..." He rolled his eyes, his head following his gaze lazily as he slowly cracked his neck in a circular motion. "Maybe Gunther's got a lighter..." He instantly looked shocked, as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard himself say.

"Who?" Amy asked, staring as fierce as she could at him, which had absolutely no effect at all on him.

"uuhh... What?"

"Is he the guy you tried to cover up for back in the room? When you said 'us'?" Amy looked a little scared as she spoke. One insane and unpredictable criminal trailing her was bad enough. "Did he help you kill those cops?"

"Nope," A simple response. "They took him to the prison before me. Lord knows what happened to him," Richard said, a little too apathetic for Amy to comprehend.

"Look; just get the door open. I don't care how," Amy was too tired to care when happened next. She wanted out of this town, now. With or without Seth, or anybody else for that matter. But, whether she liked to admit it or not, having someone else around was comforting. She didn't know why, but being around someone as tall as Seth was, especially how tall Richard was, for he towered over her like a skyscraper would an ant, made her feel more secure. Even if he was a total nutcase.

Amy snapped out of her trance too late to stop Richard from snatching the gun out of her hands with incredibly fast movement. She hadn't even seen it coming. She screamed, a small yipe of surprise, but was even more surprised to see that he held the gun backwards, gripping the barrel tight. Lifting the gun over his head he brought the butt of the gun down with great force onto the solid glass door. A small crack formed, and with one more smash of the gun the cracks exploded outward over the surface, and shattered inward. Richard tossed the gun in the air, catching it and holding it properly. He stepped over the doorframe and slinked across the broken glass as if he had done it a million times, gun held close to his body and pointed upward at nothing. Maybe it was habit, as not to shoot a person accidentally; or maybe it was a cure for an itchy trigger finger.

"You could have told me you were going to just grab the gun from my hands!" Amy said, stumbling a little as she trodded through the doorframe after him, trying to avoid stepping on glass. It was useless.

"Borrowed," He corrected her. "And if I'm going in first, I'm not gunna be unarmed," He said sternly. Stealthy as a cat he walked smoothly over to the door, his golden-yellow eyes watching the entire room at once. Amy didn't have a clue how he did it, but she was grateful. She followed him like a dog at his heels.

He carelessly grabbed the doorknob, but jerked his hand back; a reflex to pain.

"What's wrong?" Amy said, watching him stare at his hand. It was shaking slightly. His other hand gripped the gun harder. In the dark she didn't see the blood until a single drop hit the floor in front if him. The shivers had now taken over his whole hand; as if they were living it crawled up his arm until he seemed to lose control from his left shoulder down. His fingers were twitching, spread out like a claw. Slowly it spread across his body, his right arm lowering until both his arms were shaking. The metal link of his handcuffs rattled softly. The gun fell to the floor.

"You might want to... back up..." Richard said through clenched teeth. His eyes were wide; for the first time, he was truly shocked. A wave of panic flowed through Amy like a tidal wave; drowning her with fear. The look on his normally calm face completely shattered like the glass door. But it had taken much less than a few pistol whips to break him. What the hell was going on?

"Richard...?" Amy said hesitantly, taking him up on his offer to back up. "What's wrong...?" Amy was starting to freak out. She could hear him groaning in pain as his entire body shook more and more violently. The sound of her quickening heartbeat pulsed and throbbed in her ears and throat, making it hard to breath. She was taking small gasps of air, just short of hyperventilating.

Richard had lost control of himself. He couldn't even curse under his breath anymore. He was starting to lean foreword, keeling over in slow-motion. Amy heard someone screaming, loud and echoing throughout her head as Richard fell to the floor. His muscles went limp before he had even hit the ground. He made no attempt at all to catch himself. It took Amy until he was flat on the ground, face pressed against the carpet before she realized it was she who was screaming.


	18. Numb

Reign of Blood

Chapter Eighteen

Numb

She opened her eyes, her voice down to a soft whimper. She had scurried across the floor and now sat on the floor as far away from Richard's body as possible, back pressed against the wall and tears streaming down her face. Suddenly she stopped breathing; it was as if all the air in the room had been sucked out. She couldn't make a sound. Her own wide eyes stared at Richard's unmoving body. He wasn't dead, she could sense it... There was definitely somebody home. But she could sense something else, too... Something moving inside him, like a beast behind a curtain, pacing back and forth, ruffling the thin cloth and waiting for it's curious prey to come take a peek behind them. Amy didn't move.

"...Richard...? Are... are you... ok?" She asked, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was still holding. Richard didn't move. "...Richard...?" His limp body was shivering again, not nearly as violently as before. Instead of his previous seizure it looked as if her were merely cold. He turned his head to her. His mouth was gaping, clear liquid was streaming out. He tried to choke it out, his entire body convulsing. Finally he pushed himself to his feet. Amy held her breath. Again. She couldn't hear his.

He stood up without using his hands. If she hadn't been with him and seen him use them, she would have thought his arms were dislocated from the way they swung loosely in front of him, as if they weren't attached at his shoulder. He was hunched over, but he was standing. Clear liquid still dripped and gushed out of his mouth. His hair was soaked.

"Richard!" Amy yelled at him, but he couldn't hear. Slowly he lifted one foot and attempted walking. Like an uncoordinated baby deer he fell face-first back onto the floor, tripping over his own feet. It was then Amy saw it, saw the thing that had somehow attached itself to Richard. One look into his eyes and she knew it wasn't him. He was possessed.

"Richard! Fight it!" She yelled to him as his captor tried to force him to get back up. The white carpet beneath him was soaked gray with water. As he pushed himself up awkwardly to his hands and knees, water gushed out of the carpet. He clenched in fingers into the tainted white he knelt on, mouth still hung open as if he were trying to scream but no sound would come out.

The gun was still on the floor near him. She doubted shooting him would solve anything, for his possessor had no body, no shape. She would only be killing Richard.

But would he have the sense to pick up the gun and use it against her? She was too far away to stop him if he did, scared stiff. She didn't trust her muscles to work if she needed them to.

Icy blue water continued to flow from Richard's mouth. Whatever was inside of him... Amy didn't even want to know, didn't want to see it... And especially didn't want it near her.

"_Amy!_" Richard's voice snapped Amy back to reality. His voice shattered the silence filled only by the splashing of water form his mouth. As he spoke he sprayed the liquid out, struggling to talk through it. His voice was harsh and low, echoing, gurgling. "_Amy! Help... me..._" He forced the words out. "_I... can't... breath..._" He muttered in cold gasps for air. Amy leaned foreword, the water pouring from her eyes was nothing compared to his drenched body. It looked as if he had been crying in pain. He might have been before, but it could have also been from the thing possessing him. It was forcing water out of him; not only was it now seeping out of his mouth but his eyes, nose and ears, too. He collapsed on the carpet, not breathing, just letting the water leak out of him and soak into the carpet. The pool around him was widening slowly, the carpet unable to hold it all.

Amy took in a deep breath and forced herself to stop whimpering. She crawled the short distance across the room to him quicker than she thought it would take. If the ghost had a better hold on him he could have been on her faster than she would have been ready for.

She knelt next to him, and touched his face. It was like touching a very wet corpse; freezing cold, pale, and he didn't flinch the slightest on contact. All the blood had been washed off of his face and striped prison getup, but only to be soaked into the cloth and become a lighter red on his clothes and on the carpet.

She slapped his cheek gently, trying to get him to wake up. His eyes were stuck open, filled with water. It was him behind his eyes again; the monster was gone. But the water kept flowing.

"Richard?" Amy said. She moved her hands to his shoulders and tried to shake him out of his trance.

Amy blinked and it was there. A white, clear hand of a ghost was sticking out of Richard's back. It reached up and grabbed her wrist before she could pull away. She screamed at the top of her lungs, but even that didn't wake him up.

She felt the icy grip of the ghost around her wrist for only a split second. The icy numbness took over instantly, until she couldn't feel her entire arm. She screamed again; knowing the slender white fingers were there but unable to actually feel them anymore. She couldn't imagine what it would be like if this thing was inside her.

Amy saw herself let go of Richard, but wasn't actually aware of ever letting go. She tried to pull away from the hand, but the more she backed up the more arm was exposed out of Richard's back. The cold was unbearable; it climbed up her arms and was slowly engulfing her entire body. She was trembling almost as violently as Richard had when he touched the doorknob. She couldn't breath anymore, and felt freezing water filling her lungs.

Another arm reached out of his back. This time it plunged it's hand into her chest. She felt it's fingers groping inside her ribcage, squeezing her heart, feeling its beats slow down at a dangerously fast pace. Amy couldn't even scream anymore. The cold have overcome her voice. Her body was weak, her eyes fighting just to stay open. As a head seemingly floated from Richard's back she fell foreword, the final stab of ice into her chest unbearable. The icy depths had taken them both.


	19. In the Heart of Darkness

Reign of Blood

Chapter Nineteen

In the Heart of Darkness

When Amy awoke she was lying down on her stomach. She was aware of only the cold, numbing feeling coursing through her body. When she finally opened her eyes her vision was blurry with cold tears. She was soaked to the bone with chilling water. She made a feeble attempt to get up, but something was holding her down. Too dazed and frozen to feel what it was, she lay her head back on the floor. It was concrete, not carpet...

She let out a soft moan, the only sound she could muster. The feeling was slowly starting to come back to her body. As she turned her head to the other side, she saw a pair of legs... coming out of her side? No. There was somebody... lying across her.

"...Richard?" She whispered, unsure of what was going on. Now that she had a picture in her mind, it was easier to feel him sideways on her back. His limbs were strewn about as if someone had just thrown him on top of her. "Richard?" She repeated, slightly louder. He let out a small groan. He was alive again.

"...hhmmm...?" He shifted his weight slightly. Amy let out a squeak; his weight was starting to hurt, making it hard to breath. She struggled under him to try and push him off, but to no avail. After a few seconds, Richard was completely awake. Realizing that he was crushing Amy, he lifted himself slowly off of her, as if it hurt him to move. "...Where...are we...?" Amy sat up across from him, watching him look around. His eyes suddenly got wide. He mouthed a curse slowly, his jaw hanging open.

Amy followed his gaze hesitantly; unsure if she wanted to see anything else that could shock Richard. The entire wall that Richard was staring at was a lineup of vertical, thick metal bars. She glanced around. They were in a small room, nothing in it but a bed and a toilet. They were... in a jail cell...

Richard jumped up to his feet, thrusting his body foreword and towards the bars. He immediately wished he hadn't. Like a dog chasing a rabbit that had reached the end of it's chain, he was jerked backwards with a choking force that made his fall onto his ass. He lifted his hands to his neck. There was a thick chain locked around his throat, connected to the wall opposite the bars. As he gasped for his breath to come back he cursed softly.

"What the fuck is this...?" He ran his fingers along the cold metal links that had him chained up like a dog. Amy sat on the floor and stared at him, not wanting to get in between him and his building-up rage. Good thing he was chained up. He looked pissed.

As Richard fumbled with the chain around his neck, trying to jerk it out of the wall, Amy's eyes wandered back towards the bars. She slowly stood up and glided over to the bars that served as doors. Richard had stopped moving and just watched her, half hoping the door was locked so he wouldn't be trapped alone.

Amy gently put her hands on the cold metal, staring past the bars. Her eyes rested on the cells across their own. A faint outline of bars lined the opposite walls, concealing black shadows behind them. It was then she realized that Richard was out of reach. If the bars were open, she could run and he couldn't do a thing about it. The question was, did she really want to run? To be alone?

Amy yanked at the cell door. With a little struggle it gave in, and it took all the strength she had left to pry it open far enough that she could squeeze through. Richard watched her with the eyes of an emotionless cat, wide and waiting. She turned back to him, only her conscience standing between her and her escape.

But once she was out, then what? Amy stared into Richard's big yellow eyes. They told her nothing.

"There's gotta be some way to get those chains off you... I'll... I'll go look... ok?" She whispered. Richard responded with a nod, his eyes till emotionless. Amy turned her back to him. She couldn't stare into those lifeless cat eyes any longer. Slowly she squeezed through the small crack in the open cell door without a backwards glance. She looked both ways. She was in a long hallway, cells lining the walls on either side. She started walking to the left, seeing a door at the end of the hall. She hadn't gotten three steps before the low chuckle of a woman's voice made her muscles freeze up.

"...Who's there?" Afraid her voice would betray her and crack, she only whispered the words softly. The laughter continued, fading out as it echoed off the concrete walls. The laughter was full and smooth; whoever it was sounded as smug as Richard had when she first met him.

"Baby? Is that you?" Richard's voice called from behind her, full of emotions she had never heard from him before; hope, happiness, something more...

From the shadows of an open cell came a woman. She was tall, straight black hair nearly down to her waist. Her skin was pale, her lips blood red, eyes such a stunning green even Amy could help but stare. She wore a tight black dress that didn't even go down to her knees. It was ripped and splattered with blood, but her confidence and the way she carried herself showed that she didn't care. One of the thin black shoulder straps was ripped, that side of the dress hanging dangerously low on her breast.

She slinked past Amy without even looking at her, straight towards Richard. His face lit up when he saw her. Without another word her long legs carried her up against his chest. She wrapped her hands around his waist and invited herself into his mouth. He didn't protest. He lifted his arms over her head, trying not to hot her in the head with the handcuffs, and put his arms around her shoulders.

Amy stared at them, confused out of her mind. Who the hell was this? The woman slid one hand down his front slowly, until she was groping him. She had Richards pressed against the wall in between her legs. Her skirt was hiked up as if an invisible hand had pulled it. She wasn't wearing anything under it.

"That was fast," She said in a deep, sexy voice. She giggled at him; he smiled and raised an eyebrow. She resumed residence inside his mouth.

Amy decided right then that she wasn't going to stand there and watch them have sex. She turned her head and looked away, and began to continue her trudge towards the far door.

Through the noise they were making Richard called out to her. "Amy! Wait," She turned only her head behind her.

"Who's this girl? She's rather... Underage for you, Richard," The woman looked disappointed in him.

"Amy, I'd like you to meet Kris," Richard spoke with confidence, his pride not broken by the woman's remark.

Amy stared with disbelief, her mouth parted a little. "_This_ is the guy who you said got busted with you?"

"That's correct," Richard smiled. For the first time Kris met Amy's glance with those stunningly green eyes.

"You, Amy, is it? Go find something that can get these off," She motioned to the chains. Suddenly she backed away from Richard in one smooth motion, and glided across the cell to Amy.

Amy backed up, giving her room to walk past her and back into the dark cell she had been hiding in. Amy shot a glance back to Richard, but he seemed to know what she was doing. There was the sound of metal-on-metal and she came forth, arm loaded with dark shadows that couldn't be identified. She stepped back into the hall.

"Jesus," Amy heard herself whisper. In Kris's arms was a plethora of guns.

"So what's your specialty? I got 'em all..." Kris dropped the pile on the bed in Richard's cell. She picked up a shotgun in one hand, spun it around once and thrust the barrel in Amy's direction with such speed that it was a reflex for Amy to scream and drop to the floor. Kris laughed.

Amy rose back to her feet, embarrassed, but not sure why. "I call the shotguns... Richard likes the revolvers... So that leaves you with a choice of these handguns, a rifle, and an Uzi..." Kris noticed Amy staring at the Uzi. "So she does have a favorite!" Kris picked up the Uzi and tossed it to her. Amy fumbled with it's odd shape. "I'm guessing you like to unload as many rounds as possible. At'll make sure its dead, all right. Four hundred rounds in a minute!"

"uhh... wait, I never said..."

"Kris, I wouldn't put something like that in her hands..." Richard looked a little uneasy watching Amy awkwardly hold the Uzi. Kris took the hint and snatched it back. Richard looked relieved.

"Ok, what kinda gun you want? I can't let a fellow woman go out there unarmed," Kris motioned for Amy to come over to the bed and pick one herself. Amy came back into the cell and looked down at the pile of guns. Doubtful that she could control anything larger than a handgun, she grabbed the smallest gun there.

"Small but deadly, I like your style," Kris apparently approved.

"She's not a criminal, Kris, she's in high school so stop treating her like she's a military commander!" Richard spat at her.

"Jealous much, Richard? Don't worry, you'll get your turn to blow something's brains out. I promise," Kris smiled at him. His frown instantly disappeared, another one of his random mood swings. He didn't look mad anymore, but not quite happy either. Kris turned back to Amy. "I'll stay here with Richard. You go find something that can help us," Without even waiting for Amy to consent her eyes turned back to Richard. She was holding the shotgun at the chains around his neck, the barrel aimed at the wall behind him. She thought for a moment as Richard yelled.

"Get that fucking thing outta my face! You wanna kill me?"

"Calm down, at the most you'd go deaf from the blast this close to your head... Sheesh..." She laughed and lowered the gun to show she was kidding. "Now get outta here, girl. We'll be waiting for you," Kris flashed Amy the most innocent smile from her usually devious face. Without saying anything Amy left the cell quietly, no arguments, and slowly made her way back towards the far door. The shadows in the cells seemed to creep inwards, crawling across the floor towards her. Or was it just her imagination?


	20. In Darkness We Find

Reign of Blood

Chapter Twenty

In Darkness we Find

It was a longer walk that she thought to reach the door at the end of the corridor. She was suddenly feeling very claustrophobic; as if the rows and rows of bars were slowly creeping in toward her, being dragged along by the deep shadows. She swallowed hard, choking back her fear, and reached for the doorknob. She paused. Flashed of what had happened to Richard last time he carelessly grabbed a doorknob flooded her mind. There had been something on the other side, something that could somehow almost reach through the metal and latch onto his flesh, crawling through his insides.

The thought made Amy shudder. She had a gun, she reminded herself. Yeah, a lot of good that had done Richard against that ghost.

Pushing these thoughts to the back of her mind, Amy clenched her fingers around the cold metal doorknob. Nothing had been waiting, watching her through the keyhole. Slowly she turned the door. It creaked loudly on rusted hinges. Amy had to use more force than she had expected, the door didn't seem to want to budge. As soon as she had pushed it open a crack she squeezed through, leaving it open in case she panicked and needed to run back to Kris and Richard. They had plenty of guns. Kris would come running if Amy screamed, armed with shotguns. If the door was open, maybe she could hear her if it got too bad...

Amy dragged her feet along the ground that seemed to be made of damp clumps of dirt. The floor squished under her feet, a thick red substance gushing out at the edges of her shoes with every step. She swallowed bile threatening to force its way up her throat, clutched the gun in her hands, her finger ready on the trigger. The smell in this hallways was terrible, the disgusting smell of the long dead. A musty, old, rotting smell that stung her nostrils and throat.

A sound behind her mad her heart skip a beat. Footsteps...? No. It couldn't be. Kris would never leave her post with Richard unless something went wrong. And even if she did, she would certainly tell Amy that it was her who was behind her. Wouldn't want to be shot by a panicking teenager.

Amy stopped walking. There were no footsteps. She forced herself to relax and keep walking. Within a few seconds they were back, the footsteps trying to imitate her own steps and synchronize the sound. Amy came to a halt again. The squishing footsteps behind her did, too.

Amy was too terrified to even make a sound, let alone call for Kris to come help her. There was a door to her immediate left. Slowly, she reached her hand out to the doorknob, much less scared of a ghost than a monster a few steps behind her who could rip her to shreds if it wanted. She grabbed the doorknob and began to pull the door open slowly.

Whatever was behind her caught on that she was trying to escape. The walking steps turned into a sprint, and Amy just barely had enough time to slide into the crack and pull the door shut before something slammed into it, scratching with nails to try and pry the door back open. Amy switched the lock with a loud clank. The creature on the other side was hissing and screaming, banging fists on the door. Her voice pierced Amy's ears, even muffled through the door it was a horrendous sound.

Amy backed away and within a few seconds the monster gave up, it's disgusting sounds fading out. Hopefully Amy didn't just let that thing in with Richard and Kris by leaving the door to their corridor open... God she hoped not.

As Amy walked further into the room, she realized she recognized everything... The room she was in was a mirror image of the room she had just left; it was a long hall, a lineup of cells on each wall. The only difference here was that different cells were open, different ones closed. As her heart slowly calmed down and the blood stopped pounded in her ears, Amy held her breath, not sure if she was hearing a sound, or if she had finally lost it. A few seconds passed, and the sound continued. She let out her breath. There was definitely something in here.

She walked slowly, gun ready, eyes scanning every cell as she passed. The further she walked down the hall, the louder the sound became. It sounded like... a low, buzzing noise, almost like music...

A cell to her right made her stop dead in her tracks. "Seth!" Amy yelled, running over to the bars and grabbing them with her free hand. There, shrouded in shadows in the middle of the cell, was Seth. He was on his knees, arms tied behind his back. There was a chain hanging from the cieling that was bound tightly to both his wrists, pulling them upwards. The awkward position of his arms bent backwards looked painful, and caused his back to bend foreword so his face was pushed against the floor. He looked completely helpless; as if even moving an inch would tear something in his shoulders. "Seth!" Amy called to him again, but he didn't respond. It was then she figured out where the strange noise was coming from.

Seth had his cd player on, covering both of his ears. The volume was turned up as loud as it would go, blasting some type of heavy metal. It wasn't very loud for Amy, but Seth's ears were probably bleeding by now it was so loud for him.

Amy called his name over and over, practically screaming it. He didn't move an inch. His music was so loud there was no way he could have heard her. He was breathing heavy, as if he had just ran a mile, but had asthma. In his crumpled position it was hard for him to breath, hard for him to get a good breath without his shoulders moving and dislocating them, or worse.

"Seth!" She couldn't understand why he didn't just stand up. That would relieve the stress on his arms and maybe he might have even been able to get out of the chains. But his legs were chained together, too. The same thick silver chains bound his ankles together, then tied his shins to his upper legs. He couldn't have moved an inch if he wanted to. "Seth!" Amy screamed one final time before giving up. In silence she could do nothing but watch his pain. He didn't even know she was there.

Suddenly Amy had an idea. Kris had joked about shooting off the chain around Richard's neck, but couldn't because it was too close to his ears, if anything. The chain binding Seth went all the way up to the ceiling. Plenty of leeway... Right?

As Amy pointed the gun at the chain that seemed suddenly thin she hoped a bullet could actually pierce the chain. It should be able to, but even when she stuck her arm through the bar she wasn't close enough to know if she could actually shoot it. It seemed a lot harder now. She knew the chain was thick, but to get it with a bullet? Amy had never held a gun in her hands before this day.

She closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. Stupid, very stupid. She opened them a split second after the shot rang out. It was much louder than she had expected. Now she knew why Kris hadn't been eager to shoot so close to Richard's head.

Seth heard the bullet, Amy could tell from the way he tensed up even more, the terrified look on his face. His eyes were blindfolded, she couldn't tell until he had turned his head slightly. Great. The chain was still attached to the ceiling. All that she had managed to do was scare the shit out of him.

His sudden movement of his muscles looked painful, he cringed as if she had shot him. Shit! Had she accidentally shot him? "Seth!" Amy yelled. Now that he was listening for outside noise maybe he would hear her.

Amy fired again, and again. Still the chain was reluctant to be broken. A deep growl made Amy freeze, a cold chill running up and back down her spine. Her gunshots and screaming must have alerted it to her position. Was it the same monster that had been following her outside? God she hoped not. That thing showed actual signs of intelligence. Maybe it would know how to avoid a gun handled by an amateur.

Slowly Amy forced herself to look behind her, over her shoulder. Its a great way to die in horror movies, look before you act. Amy didn't know how exactly to act without getting killed anyways. Neither option sounded too great.

As she looked behind her she realized that the growls were coming from a cell. She let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. There was something a little comforting to know that the monster was on the other side of bars, in a cell. She turned back to Seth, planning on making as much noise as possible. The monsters knew where she was, anyways. If it was to either go out with bang or fizzle out, she would choose to go out screaming and shooting, taking as many monster with her as she could.

She banged the butt of the gun on the bars of Seth's cell, hoping that if he couldn't hear it, he would feel the vibrations. She whacked the gun into the cold steel so hard her hand was vibrating painfully along with the gun. She screamed Seth's name, trying to get his attention once more. She held the gun right and kept shooting, aiming as best as she could at the chains strung tightly from the ceiling. Seth was in enough pain, it was time she ended it.

Amy was as surprised as Seth to see the heavy metal chains fall limply with a low clanking of the links together and a thud as they hit him in the back. He let himself fall forward a little. Amy realized he had been straining his entire body to keep his arms in their sockets. He relaxed his muscles and fell into the fetal position on the floor of the cell. His arms were still behind his back; his legs chained tightly together and folded up into his chest. Amy had to get in there.

The gun had worked on the chain. She held it pointed at the lock as the snarls and hisses got louder behind her. She was aggravating all the residents of this cell block. Oh, well.

She squeezed the trigger, and to her astonishment, the lock flung open. Guns can fix anything.

Amy ran into the cell and immediately yanked the headphones and blindfold off of Seth.

Her scream filled the bare, empty halls and cells down the corridor. It drove the monsters mad; they shook at the closed bars and tried to break free. So much from that scream; the fear was intoxicating.


	21. Dream in Peace

Reign of Blood

Chapter Twenty-one

Dream in Peace

It had all happened so fast. Was it all just a dream? He hadn't meant to try and hurt Amy, if he even did. He wasn't sure anymore what was real and what wasn't. Had he dreamt waking up on top of her, too? Her screams and chokes and gasps for air still clung to the inside of his skull.

Seth awoke, after what seemed like no time at all, a blink after falling to the floor in the hotel lobby. He had felt cold, freezing, all of his muscles tightening at once. He couldn't move an inch, and could hardly yell to Amy as she ran away from him. Real or not, he deserved it for what he had almost done.

His vision slowly came into focus, a white, fiery blur that blinded him. Seth squinted, and tried to lift his arm in front of his face to shield his eyes from the light. His arm's wouldn't move.

As he slowly came to, he could sense the feeling in each of his limbs coming back. His head felt heavy, and burning hot. He felt as if he were on fire. Had he died?

The light that forced its way into his head died down as his eyes adjusted. He was looking at a room from behind a metal-wired cage. The white light was a lamp hanging from the ceiling, pointed directly at his face. It was so close he could have touched it if he could move his hands. It was then he felt the sweat run down his face. No, it didn't run down his face, it ran up. The beads of sweat were dripping up towards his hair, getting it damp and sticky. As Seth looked past the light he saw an upside-down room. His head was throbbing from all the blood rushing, the rest of his body felt weak and hot. It was an odd transition from freezing to burning, and Seth felt like he had missed something in between.

He tried to pull his arms free again, but they were chained out to his sides as if he were crucified upside-down. His legs were tightly chained outwards, too, though not as spread out as his arms. He doubted they would stretch that far. Judging from how much it hurt the muscles in his legs, the only reason his legs hadn't been pulled to the sides any further was because they refused to bend any more than that. He craned his neck to see around him. He was trapped in what appeared to be a metal cage, a few inched wider than his body on all sides. If it were any smaller the cage would have been pushing against his body, pinning it in place. The chains seemed kind of like a waste.

"So you're awake?" a throaty feminine voice chuckled. "I thought I'd accidentally killed you. Can't let that happen without a bit of torture first... How's an eternity sound to you?" Her voice filled the room; it was an evil, harsh voice that resonated throughout the darkness. Her voice danced in circles around him, engulfing him with its madness.

A woman walked out from the shadows cast by Seth's eyes, the blind spot just behind the bright light. She had short black hair and a wicked smile on her face. She was a lot shorter than Seth had imagined her; for someone with such a powerful and scary voice she seemed small.

Wait... Seth had seen this girl before. As he racked his brain to try and think through all the blood rushing to his head, something clicked. It was the girl who had responded to his mad kicking of the cell wall when he found himself inside the padded room... She was the girl who had such a sad face when she had told him that he had to stay there... Now she was the epitome of evil.

He tried to speak, to talk to her, but his heart was pounding furiously in his throat. He swallowed hard a couple times, but he couldn't swallow the throbbing in his neck. No sound could force its way out of his mouth.

The girl laughed again at his failed attempts to talk. "Maybe I should just rip out your vocal cords now... Save you the trouble," She found herself quite humorous, and ambled slowly closer to Seth. Something gleamed silver in her hand. His face would have been pale with fear had the constant rush of blood to his head not kept him flushed with a light pinkish red. It was getting harder to breathe.

The woman's fingertips slid along the silver blade, drawing blood. Her smile never faltered. She didn't even blink, no signs of pain showed on her face. She continued to run her fingers along the knife, until they were covered in blood that dripped all the way down to her knuckles in thin crimson lines.

Seth blinked and she was mere inches away from his face. He gasped, choking on his pinched throat, and tried to back away but couldn't move. The blade was too close for comfort. It caught the dim light in the room just right and almost shimmered, a flawless, pure silver. "I'll give you a choice... Would you rather see no, hear no, or speak no evil?" Her words danced off her tongue playfully, but the look in her eyes showed she would slit his throat faster than he could blink again.

She waited patiently for his response, playing with the knife until both her hands were evenly coated in blood. It took Seth longer than it should have to realize that most of the blood was his. He responded to the pain spreading across his chest by wincing, he couldn't get a sound out to scream. "If you don't decide, I will..." With each passing moment the knife dug deeper into his flesh, the blade so cold it burned.

"...No... none..." Seth choked out through gasps of air. The woman's eyes got slightly bigger for a split second, then her smug look returned as if it had never quivered. She laughed out loud, a harsh bark. Her eyes told him she was not impressed by his boldness, and her laugh hurt Seth's ears and sent stabbing chills through his body. But that could have been partly because of the knife, he couldn't tell.

This time he didn't even blink. She moved so fast he couldn't even see it, when she stopped there were more blades and torture devices in her hands. "Okay then, smartass..." Her voice scared Seth more than anything else in this town. "How 'bout all? ...I'll take each one... each one you took from me..." Her face showed nothing but vengeance as she stared him in the eyes. "...since you can't decide." She was too close again, and Seth couldn't do anything about it. Her voice was as cold as ice, surrounding him and freezing his muscles so tight it was painful.

Seth didn't remember being dropped out of the cage. When he could feel his body again, he was on the floor. The blood was no longer pounding in his head. He tried to get up, but she slammed into him so hard he felt like he was spinning. His head crashed onto the hard floor, and before he could stop her the knife was held high above her head, racing down towards him.

He screamed. It didn't last long. It felt like she was jamming something down his throat, something cold, sharp, hard... In a second the thing blocking him from breathing felt as if it were trying to burst out from inside of him. He couldn't scream, he couldn't move. Her body was no longer holding him down; but a blanket of ice; pure and paralyzing, freezing him solid. But when he stared up at her, she was still there, smiling as she twisted the object in his throat. She yanked it out with excessive force, and Seth began choking on blood. His mouth was instantly filled with the warm liquid.

Not even skipping a beat, she dropped the thing she had jammed down his throat on the floor. It clanked, deep-pitched and metallic until the cold numbness blocked his ears. She reached onto the floor next to him and picked up the knife she had mutilated him with, holding it tauntingly close to his face.

Seth couldn't scream. He could even move to push her off of him. He could only watch her on top of him, her laugh high-pitched and maniacal, as if she were enjoying this more than sex. Maybe to her, this was sex. The look in her eyes told him he might be right.

"Are you ready, Vincent?" She cackled, for lack of better word, high and ear-splitting. Seth couldn't even speak to ask her who the hell she thought he was. But he was so terrified that even if he could have talked, he wasn't sure if the fear would allow it. "Oh, that's right. You can't answer me," She found herself hilarious. Seth wanted to strangle her.

A sudden noise, faint and almost inaudible; almost, sounded in the back of Seth's mind. It happened again, and was a little closer. The strange, muffled noise somehow managed to tear his attention away from the girl for a split second. She had heard it, too. The look on her face showed it plain and clear. The sound echoed again, and sounded like a gun being fired underwater.

She yelled loudly, a long string of curses without any breaks in between. The gunshots were getting louder, closer...

"Son of a bitch!" She screamed. Her eyes filled with more rage than Seth could even grasp, so much rage that it filled the room with a burning heat that somehow made the ice enveloping him even colder. She tore at his face with the knife, digging the tip into his eye. She had moved so fast he didn't even have time to blink in a reaction. With one swift motion she had done what she set out to do. Seth's mouth hung open, gaping in a silent scream.

The gunshots were so close now Seth could hear them. Voices accompanied the shots, so many voices, noises... "NOOO!" The girl screamed it as if the gun was firing at her. She had dropped the knife and was clutching her head. "No, no no! I'm not finished yet!" The ice melted. Seth's vision went black and it was as if someone had just thrown him against a brick wall, or a horse bucked him in the head with it's hoof.

When he came to his arms were wrenched back at an odd angle, pulled so far back it hurt almost as much as the rest of him. A screaming voice and wailing guitar sounded so loud in his ears he thought he would surely go deaf. That girl would be very pleased. His body twitched and writhed with unimaginable pain. It was as if there was so much pain his body didn't know what to do with it all. Screaming sounded like a good outlet, but he couldn't make a sound. If he had managed to make a sound he couldn't hear it over the blaring music.

The gunshots fired again, so loud he could make it out over the music, and in the few seconds that felt like eternity his body fell limp to the cold floor. It was as if he had just dove into an ice lake; the tiles on the floor were as frozen as the girl had made him feel.

Suddenly someone was next to him again. He curled up in the fetal position, his muscles still cramped, pulling his legs to his chest. Something cold held his arms behind his back. He didn't want to see who was next to him. He didn't want to see anything. Once he realized how close he had come to that actually happening, Seth wished he hadn't thought that.

The music was ripped away from his ears so fast Seth thought he had gone deaf. It was when the blindfold around his head was pulled off he actually realized he had been wearing one.

Amy's scream filled the cell block, bouncing off the walls. Seth could hear the excitement growing in his cellmates screams and howls. Nothing got them more eager to sink their teeth into some flesh then a victim's pure fear.

Seth tried to tell Amy to stop screaming; his ears hurt enough. But the feel of blood quickly shut him up. He realized why she was screaming and wished he could scream more than ever.


	22. Taken Away

Reign of Blood

Chapter Twenty-two

Taken Away

Seth coughed up blood, and could feel the cool blood running down his chin. He felt more cool blood running down his right cheek in a quick stream, as if removing the blindfold had broken the dam holding it all back. It rushed down his face and fell in thick drips onto the hard floor. Soon the entire right half of his face had a curtain of blood. She had cut him in and around his eye deeper than he thought.

Amy screams had stopped, died down to a soft sob as she stared at him. He finally mustered up the courage to look her with his one eye; her face was so sad he didn't want to see her like that. Only am echoing crash from the cellblock tore Amy's eyes away from him. The cell holding back about seven monsters had just given in, unable to sustain the force of them anymore.

Amy jumped to her feet, sliding the cell door closed again as quickly as she could. The monsters reached through the bars, tearing at her bare legs and ripping apart her knee-high socks with long claws. But she couldn't let go of the bars; of she did they would pull it open, for she had broken the lock.

Her screams filled the room once more, louder now and filled with pain. She had her legs as far away from the bars she could get them and still hold the door closed, and yet their claws still managed to reach her. They were too low on the ground to reach her arms, thank god, for she wouldn't last long if they could. She screamed again and again, knowing that it was just a matter of time before the monsters got in. The louder she got, the more excited and vicious the monsters became.

Blood was running down her legs from countless scratches and gouges. Just when she thought she was going to give up, hide behind Seth and hope his blood was enough to subdue them, A loud gunshot made them all turn their heads to the door she had came through.

The monsters ran towards the door and out of sight. With every shot fired the monsters flew backwards in threes and fours. Two more shots and each of them were filled with enough holes to make them stop moving. A few spasmed on the floor until they died.

"Kris!" Amy yelled, sliding the door open an inch to greet her. She had never been so happy to see someone.

"Jesus, Amy!" Kris leaned the barrel of the shotgun on her shoulder and yanked the cell door open the rest of the way. "You're a mess, girl. Good thing you scream so damn loud." Kris craned her neck to look around Amy, not bothering to move her feet to get a batter look. Her pale green eyes widened and she raised an eyebrow. "Who's this? Holy shit! What happened? He misbehave so you fed him to the monsters? My god, look at him!" Her thoughts all blurted out of her at once. She and Amy both walked over to him and knelt by his side. Seth was still lying on the ground, looking up at Kris, his face nearly covered in blood.

"No... A monster couldn't have done this. Hey, kid, you wanna tell me what this pretty little girl did to you?" Kris spoke a little louder, as if he couldn't hear her.

"I didn't do anything! I found him in here all chained up..." Tears pushed at the back of Amy's eyes. Kris noticed her starting to whimper and put an arm around her shoulder, her other hand tight on the shotgun.

"I know, I know... I was only kidding, Amy, calm down... We'll get him outta here," She let go of Amy and started examining the chains all over Seth, pinning his legs folded at his chest and the ones holding his arms behind his back. She fumbled with the chains, looking for a lock, but there was none. Some how she managed to get the ones off his legs by sliding them off. They went down slow, they were tight and reluctant to let him move again. She had to hold his baggy pants up with one hand so she wouldn't pull those down as well.

"Hey Kris..." Amy broke the silence. She was responded by a grunt from Kris as she tugged at the chains. "Where's Richard?"

"Richard? ...I left him in the cell. He's got a few revolvers, he fans those sons of a bitches faster than anyone I've seen... And I left him with an AK in case he needs something bigger." She looked up at Amy and saw regret on her face. "What's the matter? He'll be fine, he knows how to take care of himself. We'll go right back to him, I promise." With those last words she managed to get all the chains off of Seth. "Well, then. I'm surprised in this guy, he's pretty tough. I know a certain someone that would have yelled bloody murder at me for yanking the chains off and pinching him so hard with the links. I like you. Kid, what's your name?" She watched Seth's face, but it held nothing but pain. Almost instantly he moved his freed hands to his face. As soon as his finger touched close to his bloody eye, he flinched and pulled back.

"Kid, don't do that, you'll make it worse." She had to hold his hands to keep him from trying to touch his wounds. He was like a wounded dog, he kept trying to rub the pain away, not knowing that would make is hurt more. "What's your name?" Kris repeated as he calmed down and gave up trying to touch his eye. He said nothing. Kris looked at Amy. "You know him?"

"Yeah... His name's... Seth..." Amy stared down at him, not sure of her feelings towards him. She was still a little mad at him for waking up beneath him as he strangled her, but... She couldn't help but think that somehow this was her fault. If she hadn't run away from him, then whatever had taken him and done this, maybe it wouldn't of happened if she had stayed by his side...

"Amy? You ok?" Kris asked, her green eyes showing an emotion Richard had never given her once; concern. Maybe it was her maternal instincts kicking in, or just the fact that she was a girl. Whatever it was, it made Amy feel better, safer. Amy nodded, eyes burning with tears.

"Come on... Lets get Seth to his feet..." Amy got on one side of Seth and they both pulled him up. He was hunched over, his muscles tight and not ready to be moved. It made him look smaller, helpless. Normally he would have given Kris a run for her money in the height department, but now he looked... broken. He refused to meet either of them again with his eye. Amy stared at his bloody face, but Kris had stopped looking respectfully, concentrating on carrying most of Seth's weight and the shotgun.

Slowly Kris let Seth stand on his own. She asked if he was ok, or if he wanted to lean on her, but he just shook his head, eye to the floor. Kris was walking fast on her long legs, taking about one stride for every two of Amy's. Amy held onto Seth's hand, trying to bring him back, to get him to look at her. He watched the ground and let her lead him like a dog on a leash.

Amy tried to keep up with Kris, but it was obvious she wanted to get back to Richard fast. She walked ahead of them and opened the door, waiting for them to catch up. Her face showed nothing; she was good at hiding her emotions, like Richard, but Amy knew the reason she was walking so fast. The reason was chained to a wall by the neck in the next cell block.

They rushed back down the long corridor of cells, towards Richard's. "Richard, it's us," Kris said before walking into view of his cell. Didn't want him to jump the gun and accidentally shoot her. Very unlike Richard, but still a possibility.

"Who's that?" Richard asked as the three filed into his cell.

"Amy says his name's Seth. Hasn't said a word yet. Maybe he's just shy around girls," Kris smiled at her own joke. Seth looked up at her when she said that, wanting to argue. But... She looked so much like her... Kris's hair was straight and black and long, and she was at least a foot or so taller than that girl... Older, much more beautiful, and her face showed no evil... But that hair... Seth looked back at the floor.

Seth jumped as Richard slammed his hand into his shoulder. It nearly woke him up from his state of shock. "Well, Seth, sorry but I don't share Kris." He grinned. "But I think I know who you've got your eye on..." Richard laughed, eyes widening slightly. He slapped his forehead in overdramatic embarrassment. "Sorry, buddy, didn't mean that." Count on Richard to lighten the mood. Amy was surprised he wasn't more serious about Seth's wounds, but then again, Kris wasn't much better. Amy had cried and screamed. The other two seemed perfectly fine with it.

Kris took the gun out of Richard's hand, and Amy almost didn't see her arm move it was so fast. Richard didn't even seem to notice, that or he just trusted her so much he didn't care. If Seth had tried to take the gun, Richard might of shot him before he even got his arm completely there.

"Hold still, baby," Kris grabbed the chain around his neck, stretching it out tight against the wall. She pointed the gun at point-black range at one of the thick links.

"Shit! What're you doing? Move that thing away from my head!" He yelled, not laughing anymore. Guess he was serious about not going deaf.

"Look, you got one option. We gotta get out of here, and I couldn't find anything else to get this thing off with. Either turn your head to the side and lose one ear, or stay still and lose both." Richard stared at her, eyes narrow and lips pinched. Kris sighed, grabbed his head with both hands as if she were going to kiss him, and forced his head to the side. "Don't move," Richard didn't move.

The revolver fired, dangerously close to Richard's head and his right ear. The loud shot made him jerk away as the chains fell to the ground, his hands over his ears. "Jesus Christ, woman!" The chains around his arms were long enough that he could smack his hands against his ears without strangling himself. Kris grabbed his hands, made Amy keep them still as they were held straight out, and shot those chains too, gun pointed at the floor. It wasn't close to anyone's head, but it was still loud.

Richard jerked his hands back and covered his ears again. "Richard, are you ok?"

"Shutup, woman! You're hurting my ears..." Kris hugged him around the waist to show she was sorry. His eyes were shut tight, and his eyelashes caught the moisture threatening to leak out of his eyes in one final loss of his masculinity. Kris didn't care, she wiped his eyes for him and kissed him. Slowly he moved his hands away from his ears and hugged her back. Apology accepted.

She let go, looking into his yellow eyes. They were wet, but he wasn't crying. She moved her chin onto his right shoulder and whispered something so softly into his ear that Amy nor Seth heard it.

"What?" Richard said, pushing her back and giving her his other ear. She leaned into his left shoulder, her eyes becoming moist as well. She whispered again, and Richard's eyes quivered for a split second, but Amy saw it. He put his arms around her again and whispered something back. She smiled through tears, wiping her face on his shoulder before she turned back around. His right ear was ringing so bad it was giving him a pounding headache, but he would never admit that to Kris. Whatever he said to her, he was trying to make her feel better about taking away one of his ears. Amy watched them, they were probably just glad he still had use of his left one.

She turned to Seth. His eye was watching them, too. He was trying to think of how that girl would have stolen his hearing. Would she have used a gun, fired it right next to his each ear? No, that wasn't sadistic enough. She might have actually shot his ears off, just because.

Amy tried to read his face, but the curtain of blood made it so she couldn't tell what he was thinking. It was too distracting. It had started to dry, but a few drops still trickled down. When Richard turned to Seth, he looked at his face and sighed. "Why did no one at least try to stop him from bleeding to death out his eye?" He walked over to Seth, who backed away instinctively. "I'm not gunna hurtcha, kid..." Amy had to admit that Richard's height was a little intimidating, and his prison clothes didn't do much to disprove this theory. Even to Seth Richard was tall.

Suddenly Richard grabbed at Amy so fast she let out an embarrassing yipe. Richard smiled, paused, and took the blindfold out of her hand. She didn't realize she had been clutching it this entire time. Richard grabbed Seth's upper arm and held up the blindfold.

Seth's eye got wide. His heart pounded in his chest, his breath got fast and heavy. "No- you-re-!" Seth managed to get a few words out before collapsing on the ground, choking out mouthfuls of blood.

"Calm down, kid. At the rate you're going, you'll be out of blood in no time. I'm not gunna blindfold you again," He said, noticing the blood covering the cloth in his hand. It must have been covering his eyes at some point. "It'll only cover your bad eye, I promise," Seth tried to take in deeper breaths, the blood running down his chin slowing. He tried not to choke on the blood again as he let Richard tied the blindfold back around his head. Like he promised, it only covered the eye he couldn't see out of anyways. Richard tied it tight, trying to get the blood flow to stop.

He stood back up, and Seth tied to lay down on the floor. "Whoa, buddy, don't lay down yet. Gotta stay awake," He pulled Seth to his feet with the help of Kris. Richard looked at Kris and smiled. "Ya know, it's a good thing we're not in a real jail... This guy'd be prison bait,"

Kris laughed. "He'd get passed around like currency-"

"Hey! Knock it off! He wasn't always like this!" Amy said. She felt tears pinching at her eyes again. Richard and Kris weren't smiling anymore. They each muttered an apology aimed at Amy for some reason, as if Seth couldn't hear them or wasn't even there. Kris touched her shoulder. "Yikes, didn't mean anything by that, honest."

"Yeah. If you haven't noticed by now, we have a warped sense of humor." Richard said, grinning again. They both left the cell and turned, waiting for Amy and Seth to follow. Amy began to walk, but noticed that Seth wasn't following. She grabbed his hand again, and led him out. He was like a movable doll, no protesting as long as Amy moved him. He would follow her if she dragged him along, and stay still if she didn't. Amy wanted to know who did this to him. More hate than she had ever felt before built up insider of her, for reasons she didn't understand. Anyone that could screw with someone's mind like this... She wasn't sure what to do, all she knew was the she wanted revenge...


	23. The Cross

Reign of Blood

Chapter Twenty-three

The Cross

Amy walked behind Kris and Richard. They almost seemed to know exactly where they were going, as if prisons were nothing new to them. It was then, walking with Seth's hand in hers she realized that Richard and Kris were getting further and further away. "Wait..." She said softly. They both stopped and turned around. Kris rushed back to her, Richard close behind.

"What's wrong?" Amy could feel the pain in her legs, a sore, faint feeling that stung her from the knees down. It was hard to feel her legs, and she hadn't noticed it right away. But the feeling was starting to wash over her in a wave of nausea. Kris helped her sit down. Seth backed up against the wall and watched.

Kris stood up, pulling a small silver blade out of her boot. Seth's eye widened, he pressed himself against the wall hard. She turned to Richard and without even asking grabbed the collar of his striped jumpsuit and sliced the knife down to his stomach, ripping his shirt carefully. He raised an eyebrow.

"What the fuck are you doing, Kris?" He asked, but did nothing as she ripped the top part of his outfit off, then ripped that in half. She said nothing as she wrapped each piece of his shirt around Amy's lower legs, trying to close the deeper wounds. Richard's face went back to his usual apathetic expression, suddenly understanding that she didn't just want him to strip for no reason.

After securing the pieces of cloth around Amy's legs, Kris sat down next to her and gave her a few minutes to rest. Richard sat down next to Kris and put his arm around her waist. Seth was the only one left standing. He refused to get close to the ground again. Not again, not where she had almost trapped himself inside his own mind. The cold floor beneath him threatened to suck him under, it swirled and rose, as if the entire room was being filled with ice water. He felt like he was sinking again, a horrible feeling of being drowned by the shapeless cold. It entered his mind, freezing his brain. He couldn't think, couldn't force out the cold.

"Seth?" Amy's voice broke the silence. He opened his eye and saw her kneeling next to him. He hadn't realized he had fallen to the floor. The cold washed out of him, and with the swish of numbness leaving he though he heard a woman laughing. He sat up, letting Amy help him. He leaned against her, like a scared child crying to mommy about the monsters under his bed. The only difference was that the monsters were real.

Suddenly Amy jumped, pulling back from Seth. He winced, falling on his side from Amy shoving him away. "Seth! I'm sorry! Your phone scared me..." Seth didn't move, but the soft vibration of his phone sounded through the room. Realizing Seth wasn't going to move to get it, Amy reached inside his deep pocket and retrieved it. She looked at it shaking in her hand like a scared puppy, but didn't open it.

"Lemme listen to it," Richard said. Kris took the phone from Amy's hand, flipped it open and held it against his ear. Richard frowned, giving her a look a dog might give it's trusted owner who just kicked it. Kris didn't have to apologize, her eyes said she was sorry. She put the phone in her other hand, her arm around the back of his shoulder, and held the phone to his left ear. He stared at the floor and listened. After a few seconds he spoke.

"I hear something... but it's quiet. Turn it on speakerphone," Kris put the phone in the middle of them all. Everyone forgot about Seth's fallen body, and stared apprehensively at the phone. Kris turned it on speakerphone. For a few seconds there was nothing. Then a soft woman's voice came in.

"..._So cold... ...So... cold..._"The woman's voice was shaky, quiet, and sent chills down everyone's spines. She kept repeating those words like a chant, over and over. Everyone froze. An invisible snake made if ice slithered up Kris's arm, sliding over her entire body. It didn't stop until everyone had felt it's ice grasp, then disappeared into the floor. The voice on the other end of the phone got softer and softer until it faded away, and they were left with a dial tone. Kris flipped it closed and put it back into Seth's pocket.

After a few moments later Kris and Richard were on their feet, eager to keep going. No one spoke. The voice sounded so... familiar to Amy. She kept hearing the sad voice in the receiver, filled with nothing but sorrow. She had been betrayed...

When Amy snapped back into reality, Seth was standing above her, hand held down. She took it and he helped her up. Amy watched him with wide eyes; it was the first time in a long while he had willingly touched anyone, the first time he'd willingly even looked anyone in the eyes. Once Amy was up on her feet he looked back down to the floor with his pain-filled eye, and wouldn't look up again. Amy had to take his hand, a little disappointed that he still wouldn't walk by himself, but relieved that he wasn't completely gone.

The four of them continued to walk, Kris and Richard leading the way, Amy pulling Seth behind her. Seth's eyes stared at the ground, as if watching it would keep it from pulling him under again. Occasionally he would glance at Amy's legs, at her sorry excuse for bandages that were already starting to turn a dark red. He couldn't help but keep looking up at Kris, to stare at the back of her head draped in black silky hair. Richard noticed him staring, and glared at Seth with yellow eyes. Seth winced and watched the ground again.

Amy looked around hesitantly, the darkness was getting worse. It was as if someone had just shone a flashlight in her eyes that had adjusted to the dark, taking away her night vision. But they never re-focused to see more than the two outlines of people in front of her, and occasional shadows that looked like imposing monsters against the bloody walls.

"Kris... why is it getting darker...?" Amy said, asking Kris for two reasons. One, she was closer than Richard, and two, she wasn't sure what Richard would say. Kris might try to comfort her, but you could always count on Richard to be brutally honest.

"I don't know..." Kris muttered, and although Amy couldn't see her face she knew Kris was probably having trouble seeing too.

"Maybe we're getting deeper underground? I don't know about you, but I've felt a slight incline in this hall..."

"We're underground!" Amy said louder than she planned on. Richard looked back at her, over his shoulder. Amy swore those yellow eyes were glowing.

"Didn't I tell you that? I'm pretty sure I said, 'the jail under the museum' at one point to you."

"No you didn't," Amy argued

"Yes, I did." Richard spoke with a tone that was harsh and final, showing he was done bickering. Amy said nothing. Richard had said so many things to her, she wasn't sure which ones were true and which ones weren't. Maybe that one was true.

"It doesn't matter," Kris said, placing a hand on Richard's shoulder. He turned back around and continued walking. "Let's just get out of here..."

At the end of the long, sloped hall was a door. The door was huge, a scene painted on it with rust-colored and chipping paint. Amy squinted at it, seeing the picture but not really seeing the actual details of it. Richard stared as if he had seen it many times, and was unimpressed. "What is it?" Amy said, walking and dragging Seth closer so she could get a better look. There was... a cross, taller than she was, sticking out of the door just barely. An intricate design of a forest was behind the cross, but the trees were black and thick. The scene was a graveyard; there was more tombstones and crosses in the background, near the trees, but small and far away. There was no handle on the door.

"It's..." Richard muttered in a voice much quieter than his ever was. His eyes were lost in the picture, examining it. A flicker of interest sparked on his absent face. "Give me the cross..." He said, reaching hand out to Amy while keeping his head turned towards the picture.

"What cross?"

"Don't be coy with me! I know you have it, just give me the damn cross!" He turned to face her. Amy backed up, bumping into Seth. He was watching Richard, too.

It took Amy a few seconds to realize that Richard wasn't holding his hand out to her, but to Seth. His yellow eyes stared deep into him, daring Seth to push his button again. Seth didn't move. Amy felt his reluctance to back away, however, when she tried to push him backwards with her body. He stood his ground against Richard.

Richard dropping his hand, letting his arm swing back down to his side. "I don't want to hurt you, but I need that cross." Richard said, his voice still calm and harsh, as usual. He tried to reason with Seth one last time. Seth didn't see it as reasoning, but as a threat. Richard moved swiftly towards them. Seth took a step back so suddenly that Amy stumbled. Before she had regained balance, Richard shoved her aside. She fell onto the ground, and Kris helped her back up, motioning for her not to try anything by shaking her head.

He grabbed the collar of Seth's shirt, forcing him closer. Seth stayed still, not even trying to remove Richard's hands from his shirt. Richard chuckled, his short chortle ending abruptly. "Do you know how long I've waited to get that thing?" He asked, his face close to Seth's. "Too fucking long!"

"Richard, please, calm down," Kris tried to coax him from a few feet away, reaching her hand out to him. "Don't involve them... It's cost us too much already..."

"How can I not involve them?" He barked at her, his amber eyes meaner than Amy had ever seen them. "They're here, aren't they? They're involved whether they like it or not!"

"Richard-" Kris tried one more time to calm him down, but he swatted the idea away like an annoying bug.

"Don't start with me, Kris. You knew what would happen, what I did for you!" Kris looked ready to cry at his words that stabbed her like a knife through the chest. She backed down, almost cowering near Amy. Amy had never seen her so small. "_Follow the cross, it will lead you to him..._" Richard whispered. Seth saw nothing but pain in Richard's once sinister yellow eyes. "Well, I found you..." Richard spoke softly again. "and now you have no choice, Evangelina..."


	24. The Other Side

Reign of Blood

Chapter Twenty-four

The Other Side

Seth's eye widened at hearing the name... _Evangelina..._

But something else was bothering him, pulling at his conscience. Seth sensed it, saw something in Richard's eyes, which was a rare occurrence. Richard continued muttering to himself, things like 'I didn't want to do it,' 'she made me,' 'It was the only way.' Seth listened to the man struggling with his conscience a little too close for comfort. His yellow eyes were big and scared. "I... I didn't want to pull the switch, Seth..." Richard whispered so soft Seth knew the girls hadn't heard anything , nor would they. "I didn't want to open those cages... but she told me the monsters would bring me the cross if I released them on her..."

A light switch in Seth's mind clicked on. And all this time Seth thought it was his fault the creatures in the cages were released, and slaughtered Jaclyn... But... Richard did it. It wasn't an accident. It was intentional.

Richard reached down Seth's shirt, but Seth pulled away so hard he fell backwards. Richard was on him in a second, holding him down as he searched him again. He felt around his neck, his chest for some reason. Seth tried to yell curses at him, but his voice didn't make an audible sound. He wanted to yell and scream at this man for killing Jaclyn. She didn't have to die...

Richard was rough as he held him down by the throat, searching everywhere on Seth's body. Finally he pulled out a delicate silver chain from Seth's pocket, a silver cross at the end. He held it up and jumped off Seth, returning to the door.

Seth stayed on the ground, his body shaking. Amy ran over to him and tried to get him up. He finally stood, but refused to let go of her hand once he was standing. Amy pulled him back to the door, having to lean with all her weight to get him to budge any closer to Richard. He tried to pull her back, and could have easily. He let her pull him back to the door for reasons he couldn't explain. As he stood mere feet away from Richard, he inched away continuously, his eyes locked on the floor. Amy patted his hand, trying to comfort him.

Richard stared at the door, the cross held by the chain. He held it awkwardly, as if there was something disgusting hanging off the end of the chain instead of a holy cross. Despite that there was no light, the cross seemed to glow and shine with a light of it's own. Richard held it away further, shielding his eyes and handed it to Kris. She took it, grabbing the silver cross in her hand and looking at Richard with teary eyes. She looked away quickly, and turned to the door. There was a small indentation of a cross at the very center of the cross on the door. Amy hadn't noticed it before, but it was more obvious now that the cross was giving off a dim white light.

Kris stuck the cross in the door and let go, backing up. Nothing happened. Everyone stared intently on the door, waiting. A trickle of blood seeped out from behind the silver cross. Suddenly the cross burned with such intense light it illuminated the hall. Richard made a small noise of pain and backed up, Kris shielding him from the light with her body. The small trickle of blood soon became many trickles that dripped down the cross and onto the ground, being sucked under the door.

"Take it out, Kris!" Richard said, falling to his knees. Kris reached an arm out and grabbed the cross, yanking it out from the indentation in the door. The light instantly faded, and in the dark a woman screamed. It sounded far away, desperate, and echoed for a long time. When their eyes adjusted to the dark again, there was a woman with long black hair and pure white wings, crucified on the cross, as if someone had just painted her into the picture. Her face held pain, blood and tears. Her wings were pinned to the arms of the cross by the same nails that pierced her palms. She deteriorated before their eyes, until only a broken and bloody skeleton of an angel was left, a few chunks of hair and flesh still matted to the bones.

A chilling wind swept through the hall, bursting from the picture itself. The wind was instantly turned burning hot as the trees in the background of the painting suddenly caught fire. Each tree was black, the leaves suddenly gone and all that was left was skeletal remains of what once was trees. Their branches burned still, the red fire flickering in the breeze but staying calm, like a crouched leopard poised to strike. On either side of the crucified angel, a monster appeared. The two bloody creatures stood upright, their heads huge and made of a pyramid-shaped metal that just barely protruded from the scene.

The image shattered into shards of clear glass, each one dripping with blood. The door was just... gone. A small entrance was opened to another corridor leading to a door, this one with a handle. Beyond the shattered glass door, a long trail of blood seeped from the shards of glass and under the next door.

Kris hid the glowing cross in her bra, and helped Richard to his feet once the light had faded. Together they walked towards the door, no questions asked. Seth looked like a deer caught in headlights, frozen, his eye wide. "C'mon, Seth..." Amy whispered. Seth was breathing hard, subconsciously pulling backwards with his body. Amy walked foreword, trying to catch up with the other two, who were already at the door. "Seth, come one," She pulled on his arm, and he slowly let her lead him towards them.

Kris stood back and waited for Richard to open the door. It creaked inward, and beyond was nothing but darkness. The two walked in and disappeared.

"No-" Seth tried to talk, and managed to get out a single word. He tasted the warm metallic liquid trying to come up his throat again, and it burned. Amy turned to him, surprised.

"...What... is it...?" She asked, her hand shaking in his. She knew well what was bothering him, for it was bothering her the same. Walking through the door meant walking into nothing, into darkness. Seth feared it more than ever. It was so close, and he didn't have the courage to take the last step. With her eyes Amy told him they had no choice. She started to pull again, and was inches from the shadows. Her mouth moved, but Seth was staring into the dark, his blood pounding in his ears. He didn't hear a word of what she said.

She stepped into the darkness and a wave of cold, numbness washed down her arm and into Seth's, flowing through his chest and down his legs. Suddenly he didn't have any control over himself at all, he couldn't feel anything but Amy's cold hand in his. It was as if they were both sucked into the dark, through the door. Amy had pulled them through the gates of hell, but there was no fire, just the icy clutches around them and hopelessness, fear, pain. The blood running out of Seth's open mouth was not warm anymore. He tried to scream but heard nothing.

Seth awoke on the floor, choking. He looked around. He was standing in the middle of a room so huge and dark that he couldn't see the walls through the thick shadows around him. He stood up, shivering and soaking wet. There was a few inches of cold, dark water covering as far as he could see, which wasn't that far. He stumbled blindly through the water, and after what seemed like forever the water had risen almost up to his knees. He was so cold and numb that he hadn't noticed until it got harder and harder to walk.

When the water was well past his knees, he tripped and fell foreword, trying to catch himself with his hands and dunking himself underneath the icy surface. He tried to push himself back up to his feet, and felt something under him... Flesh, cold as death. An arm brushed his leg, long hair curled around his fingers...

Seth jumped backwards, falling back into the cold, now dark red water. The body stayed near the floor, swaying and moving gently, closer to Seth. He scrambled to his feet, terrified but unable to make a sound. The body was there, touching his leg again. Seth reached down and grabbed the corpse's arm, yanking it out of the water.

_Jaclyn!_ Seth opened his mouth and tried to yell. In his arms he held a pale, bony figure of what used to be Jaclyn. Her body was covered in countless gashed and slashed, marks from teeth and claws. Her field hockey uniform was ripped to shreds and covered in soggy blood.

Seth put his hand on her neck to feel for a pulse, but he knew he wouldn't find one. He put her under one arm and carried her; she didn't deserve a grave such as this. She had died for him, sacrificed everything for the rest of them to live. She didn't deserve this.

He continued on, painful tears swelling behind his eyes that felt like burning and pinching. Finally, Seth spotted a ledge... a giant step that led out of the slowly rising pool. He hoisted Jaclyn's body up first, placing her on the tall ledge, and pulled himself up. The floor was made of a dark marble, smooth and slippery from the water he tracked up with him. He picked up Jaclyn, and before he could take a step foreword a deep growl stopped him in his tracks. Another figure immerged from the shadows ahead of him, low to the ground and growling louder. It's claws made a high-pitch clinking noise with every step, and it seemed to be leaking something thicker than water onto the floor.

It was her dog, that giant Irish wolfhound Mac. Seth wanted to talk to the dog, to tell it that he wasn't hurting its master. Without warning it lunged at him, and Seth found himself back in the frigid water. When he resurfaced, Jaclyn wasn't in his arms anymore. The dog was gone.

Seth pulled himself up the ledge again; all the fluids the dog had leaked onto the marble floor was gone, as if it had never been there. Had Seth imagined it all? They were both dead, there was no way they could have ended up here. The monsters probably devoured them, leaving nothing. He continued walking, leaving his own trail of water behind him.

The sound of water trickling made Seth stiffen, listening intently. A small wash of cold water raced across the floor, covering it completely. It was only an inch tall, barely covering Seth's shoes. But that meant that the water level behind him was still rising, and fast. Seth ran, splashing through the rising puddle around him.

Seth couldn't see anything. He was sprinting through the darkness. Shadows on his sides became crumpled corpses, each half-concealed in the red water so dark it was almost black. Some of them were face-down, others missing limbs. As Seth ran, the water level continued to rise. He was fighting the water, straining to run against the now at knee-level again. Some of the corpses at his side were sitting up, watching him from their lowly pits of despair. _Keep trying. Keep running. You'll end up like us soon enough._

Some were standing now, slowly walking towards him, trying to follow him. Before Seth knew it the water level was above his head, and Seth swam, kicking off hands that grabbed his ankles. Corpses floated to the surface, blocking Seth from escaping. Too many were holding onto his legs that he couldn't kick. More grabbed his torso, his arms, his head, and pulled him under. Seth couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't hear. He was only aware of death around him, touching him and trying to rip him apart. And a whispering voice, so soft and shaking Seth could just barely make out the words.

_Thank you, Seth... We're together again..._

A woman's cackling voice filled his ears, cutting off the sweet girl's whispers, her sinister and pure evil voice one he would never forget.

_I've got you now, Vincent..._


	25. For the Rest of Time

Reign of Blood

Chapter Twenty-five

For the Rest of Time

Richard opened his gleaming yellow eyes. He still felt cold, alone, numb... The same way he had felt since that day... The coldness hadn't lifted. His eyes hadn't seen the world the same since, and no one had looked at him quite the same way. It was as if subconsciously, all of humanity could sniff out the soulless, choose him out of a lineup. Maybe his eyes gave it away... They were as dead as he felt inside, and forever would be. He just wished that he could get Kris out of here...

Richard felt a cold, hard ground on his cheek. He pushed himself to his knees, and felt a presence before him without even looking up.

Evangelina smiled. "Hello, my pet. So good of you to bring him to me."

Richard stayed perfectly still, and closed his eyes gently. "Now... You promised. Let her leave." The woman's pale green eyes sparkled with a sinister glare, her smile widening.

"You gave up your soul for her. Well, my pet, was it worth it?" Evangelina laughed, spreading her white wings outward slowly. Richard kept his head down and said nothing.

"...To see her leave this place... I'd do anything..." Richard hissed at her, looking straight up and glaring with his yellow eyes.

The second he lay eyes on the angel a swift backhand cracked against his cheek so hard he almost fell to the side, but caught himself with his arms. "Avert your eyes, heathen! You gave her your soul, so now you are my dead to control..." Evangelina's grin widened. "...And I never said she could leave..." Richard's head shot back up at her, to be backhanded once more, but harder.

"We made a deal...!"

"I don't think I ever quite put it in those words..." Richard snarled at her.

"What good is the devil's word..." He spat, keeping his head down. Evangelina leaned down, touched his chin and tilted his head up so his eyes met hers. She kept her hand around his jaw line.

"You gave her your pretty green eyes..." She said, her face as straight as it had ever been. "A shame we wont get to see if your baby gets them..." Richard's eyes widened; he jerked at Evangelina, hands in fists. A quicker reaction than any human could ever possess, she clenched her hand that was still just below his jaw so tight and so fast he froze, unable to breathe. He tried to wrench her hand off his neck, but she held on tight. "Don't you ever go against your master again, my pet, or you will be sorry." She watched him struggle in her hand, fighting in vain to get a breath of air, to pull away from her. She smirked, finding pleasure in his pain. "Do I make myself clear?" She spoke in a calm tone, as you would to a small child right after making them cry.

Richard closed his eyes tightly and opened them repeatedly, trying to maintain consciousness and keep the darkness at bay near the edges of his vision. Evangelina loosened her grip slightly, giving him just enough leeway to breathe in small gasps. Richard moved a shaking hand in between his face and hers, and stuck up his middle finger.

Evangelina hissed, squeezing his neck painfully and stood, lifting him off the ground. She threw him backwards, and he hit the ground hard on his back. He lay still for a while, stunned, and gasped in air in heavy, short breaths. Evangelina stood above him, looking down in disgust. As soon as he caught his breath and started to fill his lungs, she lifted her foot and brought it down hard into his stomach. His body convulsed upwards as he choked on all the air in his lungs. The taste of metallic bile filled his mouth. She removed her foot from his stomach and he rolled over on his side, curled in a tight ball, spitting out blood and bile and gasping for breath once more.

"You will address me as 'master,' and after a command, respond with, 'yes, master.'" She knelt down next to him, brushing his hair to the side to look at his pain-filled yellow eyes. He refused to meet her eyes. "I will break you, my pet, sooner or later. You've seen nothing."

Richard pushed himself upright so he was sitting, his face close to hers. He breathed heavy in her face, and fought the urge to spit in it. "You... if you... let Kris... and our baby... go... then... I'll..."

"You'll what? Do whatever I say?" Evangelina laughed. "You already have to-"

"But... I'll do it... without... complaints... master..." Richard felt like kicking himself for saying that last word, but if there was a chance he could save Kris and their child, he could suck it up for an eternity. Evangelina watched his face, as if trying to read his sincerity. He met her eyes without blinking. She smiled.

"The dog needs a collar," She said in a deep voice, low and seductive. A monster crawled out of the shadows, carrying a long, thick metal chain. At the end of it was a metal collar. Evangelina took it and clasped it around his neck. It was heavier than it looked, but Richard didn't protest. If he only had one chance to show her that he wasn't lying, he wasn't going to blow it.

Evangelina cackled, holding onto the end of the chain. The same monster handed her something else, still attached to the collar. Richard recognized it and tried not to flinch. She grabbed his arms and made him hold them out to her, wrists side by side. Handcuffs as thick and heavy as his collar were clasped around his wrists, the chain connecting them was long and had a link in the very center connecting another chain to the front of his collar. "Good boy," Evangelina smiled again, backing up to look at all of him, the chain leash still in her hands.

Richard leaned back subconsciously as the monster approached him, crawling on all fours and dragging itself along the ground. It touched his leg with it's head and he winced. Something liquid but thicker than blood dripped off it and down the side of his leg. Evangelina laughed hysterically at Richard's terror. "Be bad and I'll have them all over you," She warned him, sensing his fear of being so close to the thing. "But you wont be bad, will you? It's part of our new deal. Well, then, maybe I'll just do it for fun,"

"Why don't you chain up Vincent and keep him as your pet? Why make me suffer instead?" Evangelina laughed again, but there was no humor or taunting in her voice, nothing but hate masked her laughs.

"Why, you ask? Why would I want to be around the man who dishonored me for eternity? Trust me, he will suffer... But you... You gave the woman you love your very soul. Humans are all fools. Did you really think that could save them both?" Richard held his breath, his heart skipped a beat. _No... _"That's right, your child is as dead as you are... Your lover is carrying a corpse,"

Richard felt the sting of tears behind his dry eyes. They tried to push out and warm the cold death that remained in his eyes, but couldn't. His whole body trembled. For once, Evangelina wasn't smiling. "Bring her," She hissed, and a creature twice the size of Richard sauntered out of the shadows, Kris's limp and shaking body thrown over its shoulder. It threw her down roughly onto the ground, and she curled into a tight ball on the floor, sobbing.

"Kris!" Richard stood and made a dash for her, but one swift yank of the chain jerked him back at Evangelina's side. She slapped the side of his head so hard it left his good ear ringing.

"Bow to me, mortal," Evangelina's voice boomed and echoed around them. Kris looked up, nothing but fear inside her glistening eyes. The monster behind her grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her upright so fast she didn't even have time to scream in shock. It threw her down to her knees roughly, and kept it's hand on the back of her neck, forcing her head down.

"Would you like to see your baby, my pet?" She spoke with such an evil tone, Richard didn't know how to respond. Whatever he said would surely be the wrong answer. But how could he see the baby now? Kris wasn't even noticeably pregnant yet, which meant it had only been a few months... "Child of my pet, take with you your mother to the grave..."

Richard pulled against the restraints holding him at Evangelina's heels, but she held on with unmatchable strength. The monster backed away form Kris and returned to the shadows, letting Kris look up at the angel before her. Her eyes were wide, silent tears streamed down her face. She turned to Richard, and their eyes met for a second. Suddenly Kris screamed, tearing her gaze away from Richard as she shut her eyes and clutched her arms over her stomach. She fell to her side, her dark hair masking her face and hiding the pain it would have held. Her body convulsed in pain, she writhed and twitched, fighting an unseen monster inside of her.

"Kris!" Richard yelled again, but Evangelina wouldn't let him move an inch away from her. She pulled so hard on the leash that Richard was actually further away from Kris than he started, pressed against the angel's leg. He stared unblinking at Kris as she screamed, her arms pressed so tightly over her stomach he could see something inside her, moving under her skin. Her cries of pain filled his head, echoed in his mind.

Kris's screaming slowly got weak, and suddenly her voice cut off. Her muscles flinched and tightened in pain, as all her energy went to struggling to breath. The thing moving inside her was working it's way up, ripping and tearing at everything, shredding her organs from the inside. Blood poured out of her mouth in a thick line of crimson. With every gasp, ever fight for one last breath, more and more blood forced it's way out of her mouth, out of her nose. A pool of dark red was forming around her head.

Kris stopped breathing, her lungs full of blood. Her muscles winced and twitched as she died, and slowly she stopped moving. Every now and then a muscle would give one final spasm, one last try of Richard's soul trying desperately to cling to her body before it was gone for good. The only movement was an occasional squirm from inside her chest cavity as the monster destroyed what was left of her organs. Slowly the movements of it died down, and her corpse lay bleeding, red streaming out of her nose and mouth like a faucet.

Richard stopped struggling against his leash, his body trembling so much he had to lean back and hold his arms steady. The only thing that mattered to him, his life, his soul, everything, was gone. He just watched his world die before his eyes. The tears behind his eyes stung, but refused to come out. He couldn't cry, he could even fucking cry.

Richard didn't look up at Evangelina's face, for he knew she would be smiling. His head was pounding, his eyes burning, the pain unable to be released. Darkness closed in around him, blurring his vision with shadows. Before he blacked out, he saw more monsters immerging from the dark, each one heading towards Kris's body... And again, there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop them from devouring her. His mind closed on the image of them ripping apart her flesh.


End file.
